SB? 



SPORTSMAN'S 
WO RKSH OP 

N H. MILLER 



Class. 
Book.. 




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CopyiightN?. 



COraRICHT DEPOSm 




LIEUT. WARREN H. MILLER, U. S. N. R. 
For Seven Years Editor of Field and Stream 



The SPORTSMAN'S 
Workshop 



By 
WARREN H. MILLER 

Author of Camping Out, Camp Craft, The Boy's Book of 
Hunting and Fishing, etc. 



Illustrated by Barse Miller 



CINCINNATI 

STEWART KIDD COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright. 1921 
STEWART KIDD COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 
Copyright in England 






V 



\ 



Printed in the United States of America 



m lb 1922 



©CIA653612 



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Contents 



PAGE 



I. Equipping the Shop - - - - 7 

II. Tent Making _ _ _ _ 21 

III. Making Pack and Trail Gear - 37 

IV. Home-made Tent Stoves and Cook 

Kits _____ ^4 

V. Leather Working - _ _ _ 69 

VI. Decov Making _ _ _ . 84 

VII. The Gun Shop _ _ _ _ _ 95 

VIII. Rod Repairing and Lure Making 112 

IX. Making Rod and Gun Cabinets - 127 



List of Illustrations 



PAGE 



Table, Bench and Cabinet for a Sportsman's 

Workshop - - - - - -ii 

Some Tent Designs _ _ _ Facing 20 

The Handy Tent— The Author's Midget Wall 

Tent --------25 

Mosquito Net Front Shelter Tent — The Lone 

Hiker's Stretcher-Bed Tent - - - 31 

Army Type Pack — The Duluth Pack — Grom- 

met Set — Ruck Sack, Front View - - 41 

Side-Opening Duffle Bag — Design for Army 

Type Pack ______ ^y 

Tent Stoves and Grub Bags - - Facing 58 

The Author's Two-Hole Hiking Stove - - 59 

Cylindrical Stove with Three-Part Cooking 
Pots — Oven Stove — The Stratton Re- 
flector Baker ------ (^^ 

Folding Wire Grate — Hand Sewing Awl — 
Wind-Shield Grate — Pattern for Axe 
Sheath ------- 73 

Wading Sandal and Rod Rests — Leather Pack 

Harness -------77 

5 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Gunman Holster and Moccasin Sewing Awl — 

Rawhide Stitch Knife Sheath - - - 83 

Ducking Battery Design — Patterns for Hollow 

Duck Decoys — Duck and Crow Stools - 87 

Snipe Stools — Three-Leaf Rifle Sight — Leather 

Ditty-Bag- ------ 93 

Bullet Mould— Folding Leaf Sight— Rifle 
Checking and Strap — The Cleaning Brush 
for the Trip — Rifle Screwdrivers — Flex- 
ible Peep ------- 103 

Shell Reloading Board — Rifle Reloading Tools 

and Shell Crimper - - - - - 109 

Lures and Spinners — Salt Water Tackles - 117 

Salt Water Rod Windings — How to Make an 

Invisible Knot - - - - - - 125 



THE 

SPORTSMAN'S Workshop 

CHAPTER I 

Equipping the Shop 

I SUPPOSE that back in the mind of each one 
of us there lurks a certain dark and obscure 

scheme, carefully concealed from the female 
members of the family, that some day we are going 
to grab a room — that small one off the upper hall 
will answer — and in that room we are going to 
establish a shop, a sportsman's den, where none of 
the conquering sex may enter. We visualize that 
shop in our mind's eye. We long for it, yearn for 
it, especially what time the various repair jobs on 
tackle, camp gear, and shooting irons become press- 
ingly urgent, and we have to upset the kitchen and 
get in everybody's way to make them. We curse 
our way through these jobs, hunting up lost tools, 
trying to make a chair do the work of a regular 
bench, using feet, hands, and teeth to take the 
place of the vise that should be there right to hand 
— you all know all about it. "Ain't it the truth," 
brothers ? 

Some of us have been bold enough to assert a 
modicum of masculine authority and seize said 
room, to have and to hold. There is no escaping 
the fact that camp gear will come back from the 

7 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

hunt shot to pieces, reels and rods go on the fritz, 
guns get rusty and in vast need of taking apart 
and overhauling throughout. We just must have 
a place we can call our own to do these things in. 

Let me describe you my ideal of a shop, and 
see if the picture is attractive enough to make a 
struggle for: A small room, with two windows in 
it, and eight by ten feet in dimensions or even less 
is plenty. In it I want, first of all, a place to work 
on^ and for this I do not think you can equal the 
ordinary deal kitchen table with stout legs, compared 
to any carpenter's contraption whatever. You 
want a place to stow your legs under and to work 
in comfort while the old pipe sozzles in its bowl and 
the snow and sleet are beating against the panes 
outside. As you work you dream over the camps 
and tramps of the season before and plan for the 
ones to come when spring again wakens the forest 
to life. 

This table, then, may be 3 feet 6 inches long by 
2 feet wide, standing 1 feet high, with plain board 
top. On it, at your right, is a husky vise, with 
anvil and horn; a vise that will hold gun barrels, 
woodwork being planed, and the like. At the left 
end is a little fellow for holding fine work, small 
gun parts, reel pinions, fish-hooks being converted 
into artificial baits, delicate work of all kinds. 
The only other fixture on the table is a small lathe 
head, with chucks and face plate, set well back to 
the left, and with a round belt going to a wheel 
and treadle under the table. This will be for turn- 
ing small parts, rod-winding, and various polishing 
jobs. It is all the lathe you will ever need. 

'8 



EQUIPPING THE SHOP 

In front of the table goes a bench, an ordinary 
low laundry bench — not a chair. Why? Because 
you cannot beat a bench as a place on which to 
lay long pieces of timber being sawed, while you 
hold down with a knee; and, moreover, you can 
shift along it with ease to front your job and set 
hammers and tools beside you on it, where they 
will be handy to pick up when wanted and not 
cluttering up the surface of the table where the 
work is. Am I right? 

All right: On the table, at the back, and pushed 
flat against the wall, we have to have a flat cabinet, 
say 28 inches wide by 36 inches high and 9 inches 
deep. This cabinet has a row of drawers, one 
above the other on each side, deep drawers, 6 inches 
by 8 inches, for holding our sets of tools and ma- 
terials for mending and making camp gear and 
tents, the leather work on straps and moccasins; 
a drawer for reloading tools for rifle and shotgun 
cleaning implements, broken shell extractors, etc.; 
a drawer for your rod-winding and repairing ma- 
terials, and parts for making baits and lures; a 
couple of drawers on each side, as flat as trays, for 
holding nails, screws, rivets, grommets, and all 
those small odds and ends that we men keep against 
the day they may come useful. 

The space above the drawers and in between 
them is kept clear and open for hanging saws, 
hammers, wrenches, planes, metal-working tools, 
brace and bits — those tools that we have found 
from long usage are just what we need and no more. 

Now, as to tools. This is going to be a joy 
shop, a place where the philosophical sportsman 

9 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

can sit him down and enjoy the pleasure of seeing good 
work grow under his eyes with good tools. Nothing 
is more aggravating and nothing induces the furious 
cussword more readily than to see good material for 
well-planned work being spoiled by dull, weak, or 
inept tools, things to work with that not only do 
not do what we ask of them, but spoil the material 
by being too large, too small, too dull, or out of 
order, like a sticking saw. We are going to avoid 
all that and enjoy our winter evenings, while all 
the time dreams of what we shall do with all this 
in the woods next season float through the 
mind. 

A long experience in making gear of all kinds 
for outdoor use has shown me that the sportsman's 
workshop needs but few tools, and most of these 
specialties. But they must all be good, the best; 
steel that is steel, that no carpenter would be 
ashamed to use in his business. That refers even 
to hammers, that useful tool so often slighted. It 
will be of good steel, well balanced, with a hard, 
flat face that will stay flat and not glance oflf the 
next nailhead. Of wood saws we will need three: 
a first-class cross-cut, ditto compass, ditto back- 
saw. Then we want a metal-cutting saw for the 
shootin'-iron bench, and the tale of toothed help- 
meets is done. Of planes, two: an iron jack-plane 
for edging and smoothing, about a foot long across 
the flat, and a small, keen hand plane for little jobs. 
A good ratchet brace comes next, and such drills 
and bits and metal-working twist drills as we need 
for the various jobs that come up. Buy as you go 
along; they will accumulate fast enough! A breast 

10 




TABLE, BENCH AND CABINET FOR A SPORTSMAN S 
WORKSHOP 



II 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

drill is a wrist saver not to be despised. I for one 
vote for it and repeat. See that it has a chuck that 
will hold metal drills. 

Of screwdrivers you will need quite a set, from 
the big fellow that can be used as a pry and will 
turn an obstinate quarter-inch screw stuck fast in 
oak, to a little slender one that will take out the 
smallest thing on your reel or your rifle mechanism. 
On the pliers list come first a heavy one with good 
side cutting jaws, and then a small fellow, also of 
steel, with hatched face to hold the smallest hook, 
and then one round-nosed one for turning things. 
Half a dozen files — rounds, flats, and triangles. 
Two cold chisels, 8-inch and 4-inch. That is about 
all the regular line tools; perhaps you have a good 
many of them already. 

And now for the special tools that we woods- 
men find indispensable in our business. In tent- 
making the ^-inch brass grommet is the one that 
will give universal satisfaction — and you will need 
'em to stick in here and there in pack gear, too. 
A grommet set for it costs about $3, and consists 
of a die anvil and a punch with long, smooth nose, 
which curls the thimble of the grommet over its 
ring. A single blow of the hammer sets the grom- 
met ring fast in the hem of your tent, where it 
grips the cloth tight, and is finished over in a neat 
round hole. Beats the scheme of trying to turn 
the thimble edge with a big nail out of sight, makes 
a round hole for your rope to pull through, and 
holds the cloth like grim death. 

For leather working we want two kinds of rivets: 
the tubular, with a blunt cone punch to set them, 
12 



EQUIPPING THE SHOP 

and the split, which comes in small boxes, with a 
holding tool to seize the head of the rivet while 
you put it on the spot and hit it a crack with the 
hammer, which drives it through the leather. 
Turning it over, the points are started apart by a 
blow on a small round bar like the shank of a screw- 
driver, and then flattened out with a finishing 
thwack of the hammer face. 

The shoemakers use a sort of lever punch for 
setting tubular rivets. I have one, but never got 
much satisfaction out of it, and generally prefer to 
drive my rivet into the leather and meet it on the 
other side with the set punch, a single blow on 
which curls over the edges of the tube so that they 
roll down on the leather and hold. A third type 
of rivet is the common copper one with copper 
washer, used for big strap corners where a heavy 
strain is to come on straps or woodwork and you 
need something to hold till the leather breaks first. 
This type requires a punch to make the hole first, 
which punch is also used in making buckle-holes 
in straps. It is a sort of pliers with a steel ^-inch 
punch and a brass seat on the lower jaw. For 
larger holes, particularly through canvas in setting 
grommets, a plain T^inch punch that one hits with 
a hammer, with a block of wood underneath for 
anvil, is a tool that you cannot make camp gear 
without. A small cousin of the grommet is the 
eyelet, that little brass fellow that you see in boots 
for the lacings to run through. An exceedingly 
useful critter in leather is the eyelet; in canvas he 
will not hold well enough to be worth setting in. 
Better use a grommet instead. A combination tool 

13 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

for punching and setting the eyelet is sold at the 
hardware stores for about $2. 

Three or four awls, straight and curved, a 
hank of stout twine with brass needles attached, a 
patent hand sewing awl, a ball of linen shoemaker's 
thread, a blob of beeswax, and a ball of cotton 
twine, make up your outfit for tent and moccasin 
repairing. The sewing is best done with two needles 
at once, pushing through from opposite sides and 
so making a double lock stitch along the seam. 
Using the awl to punch holes, almost any moccasin 
seam can be repaired that way. For leather work 
where you cannot get at the inside a special tool 
comes, called the "hand sewing awl," handled by 
most sporting goods houses and hardware stores. 
It consists of a stout needle with a spool of twine on 
the handle. You punch it through the leather 
and pull out again. A length of thread is left in- 
side. Putting your hand into the moc, you guide 
this thread through the needle point loop for the 
next punch, and so get a lock stitch. How many 
perfectly good mocs have we thrown away, simply 
because they had a hole in the sole up near the toe 
where they could not be gotten at with a needle! 
This tool will save $'s in repairing such soles! 

For further tent and leather-working tools, add 
a stout, sharp pair of shears; a sharp knife, with a 
bevel edge for cutting leather and making moc- 
casin thong strips, and a small ^-inch chisel for 
making holes where an overhand seam of flat raw- 
hide is to go. It may not seem that there is so 
very much of leather and canvas work to do in the 
sportsman's workshop — but just look over your 

14 



EQUIPPING THE SHOP 

camp gear! Here are burn-holes and tears in the 
tents, straps off and rivets torn out in duffle bags 
and pack harness, mocs with leaky seams and holes 
in the soles — no end of it to be fixed up, so that you 
will hit the woods with outfit in good order next 
time. 

And then, making new stuff! We all plan new 
tents, new packs, new sleeping rigs. We lost our 
hunting knife, perhaps, and if we just could make 
a good sheath, there are plenty of fine butcher 
knives at one tenth the price that will answer just 
as well — if they had a sheath! And then that big 
ax of ours has never had a sheath of its own, having 
gone along with its edge swathed in gunnysack. 
Why not make a real sheath for it this winter? 

I should say that the metal-working part of the 
shop comes next in importance. The cook outfits 
get out of repair, lose their bails and wire, need 
rivets, get battered and bent, and the guns and 
reels have a way of accumulating rust and dirt 
that passes belief. I would rather blow myself on 
that big vise, for a starter. There is a very good 
one with 2>^-inch jaws, opening about five inches, 
with an anvil and horn on the body end. Blessed 
tool! There is hardly a metal job in the shop that 
does not get into or on that vise at some time or 
other. For metal rivets, a store of the ordinary 
round-head soft iron rivet will be in one of those 
tray drawer pockets, and is requisitioned for cook 
kit repairs, also for new work like tinkering up a 
camp stove that you swear is the best bet ever, or 
making a new-fangled camp grate out of a broiling 
spider. Then the hardware stores are full of near- 

15 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

good camp utensils that have a foolish gadjet or 
handle sticking out somewhere, and this the metal 
bench removes and you are the proud possessor of 
something new and good to hit the trail with next 
time. 

You try that salt-water reel. Gummed fast; 
its drag sets itself; its take-apart doohickie is fast 
with green rust; it needs taking all to pieces and 
each part cleaned, oiled, and vaselined. Out come 
the screwdrivers, the oil can, and the kerosene 
dropper, and you go after him. The fresh-water 
reels are not apt to suffer much from this sort of 
thing; their troubles are mostly working loose or 
having been squeezed in a pack until the frame is 
skewed or out of round, when you take it apart 
and fix the frame at the metal bench. 

A general overhauling of the guns finds the 
actions inside caked with old grease, rust, powder 
corrosion; and that new sight that you intended 
putting on has come in by mail. With the metal 
bench and the oils and screwdrivers a happy eve- 
ning is spent, ending with the satisfactory and 
smooth clicking of a clean gun. In these days of 
ten-cent cartridges it more than pays to save the 
shells and do your own reloading. Both the Ideal 
and Winchester people have new tools now for the 
big high-power rifles. A Bunsen burner and stand 
for it is the first special tool I would want. A very 
good substitute for it is one of those little cast 
iron blue flame gas burners with level wings to set 
pots on. Either of them is to be connected to your 
gas tap with a length of flexible hose, and you thus 
have a clean, safe means for melting lead, soldering, 

i6 



EQUIPPING THE SHOP 

drawing temper, or heating iron to a bending heat. 
For a forging heat you would need a pot forge of 
some sort, with bellows. 

Another special tool which belongs in this sec- 
tion is one of those small emery grindstones, oper- 
ated by hand, with gearing. One of these will cost 
as little as a dollar, and has a screw clamp for at- 
taching on the table edge. It will save much weary 
filing and hand sharpening; for with it rough edges 
are put on axes, great and small; on tools and 
knives; and jobs of taking off metal to get a smooth 
fit are ground down on it. Another "special" is 
that bullet ladle supplied by the reloading com- 
panies. This has a tube nozzle so that it can be 
faced on the mould and then inverted, when you 
get a pressure pour, which means a good deal in 
averting spoiled and bubbly bullets. A few C- 
clamps for compressing gun springs, emery and 
crocus cloths of various degrees of fineness, and you 
have done with specials for the metal bench. 

In general reloading I find several extras which 
are worth while. A shell rack which will hold fifty 
of them is one of these. You can make it by simply 
boring holes of the size to take the shell base. Mine 
is a two-story one, with the upper board perforated 
so that the shells are gripped at mid-height. In 
either case it prevents that aggravating annoyance 
of a row of shells being tipped over while filled with 
powder or shot charges and no wads in. It goes with- 
out saying that shell loading proceeds quickest when 
all the separate operations are done in batches, all 
powdered, wadded, shotted, primed, decapped, etc., 
at one time. Something to hold the shells firmly is 

17 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

the needful, especially during the later operations. 
Another special tool is a metal rammer. Mine is 
made of brass. The wooden one furnished will not 
stand much tapping with your mallet. You are 
supposed to use the cup of your hand, but this 
becomes irksome long before fifty shells are done, 
let alone a hundred of them. No; a brass rammer 
and a light mallet make the ideal combination. 

Passing on to the fishing-tackle section of the 
shop, the first thing wanted will be a rod-winding 
appliance. Two wooden uprights with V notches 
make the simplest combination that can be built. 
If one of these is fixed permanently at the right- 
hand end of the table, to the rear, it can be used 
very effectively, turned by hand or with the little 
hand emery wheel aforementioned, by running a 
light tape belt over the wheel and around a wooden 
flanged wheel slipped over the rod ferrule. This is 
not so complicated as it sounds. One size wheel is 
enough, and it is provided with a set of bushings 
to fit snugly on the male ferrules of your own rods. 
The proper bushing for the particular rod makes 
the wheel available for use. I find that the left- 
hand V upright may as well remain fixed, too, and 
on the bench is a movable rest with half-round 
adjustable support, which is to be set up alongside 
the place where the actual winding is being done. 

A more elaborate rod winder is the lathe head 
aforementioned. It is nothing more than the 
ordinary small polishing wheel head, sold for a few 
dollars in the hardware stores, and has a chuck big 
enough to hold any small work or the end of a rod 
section. A V-notch upright and a rest complete 

i8 



EQUIPPING THE SHOP 

the outfit as before. This lathe head is run by a 
round belt running down through holes in the table 
to a large grooved wheel, with treadle fixed to a 
diagonal brace bolted to the left-hand pair of table 
legs. Those who want both a lathe and a rod 
winder may well consider putting in such a fixture. 

This sketch covers in general the indoor activ- 
ities of the shop. It is perfectly capable, however, 
of building you a fishing and gunning skiff, a canvas- 
decked sailing canoe, a dog kennel, or any other 
large wooden construction requiring more room in 
which to lay out and build. Mine has turned out 
all these delectable commodities, affording me many 
weeks of carefree vagabondage out in the great 
open. The boats were built down in the cellar, 
with part of the shop tools moved down there for 
the time being. The dog houses were put up right 
in the shop and eased out of its door — after the 
alarming discovery that they would just **make it" 
by taking the door itself off its hinges! The shop is 
always busy, especially after the strenuosities of 
the summer and fall camping trips, when every- 
thing comes in more or less frazzled. Who shall 
say that the pleasure of renewing the vigor of those 
war-worn commodities and of designing and making 
newer and better ones does not bring the outdoors 
indoors, an aura of the piney woods and the open 
waters surrounding each one of them, and the 
ponderable odor of fly dope and wood-fire smoke 
filling the shop with the aroma of the woods! 

As perhaps one of the first activities of your 
shop will be building its own cabinet, I give here a 
sketch from which a design, modified to suit the 

19 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

original preferences of the builder, can be made. 
And, as prices of ordinary tools have soared to 
unheard-of heights, I give here a list of the present 
hardware-store costs of good tools comprising the 
selection suggested in the first part of this article. 

Hammer, steel, best quality $\ 66 

Saw, cross-cut, Disston 3 45 

Saw, compass 55 

Saw, back, 16-inch i 70 

Saw, hack, metal 75 

Ratchet brace 3 85 

Bits 40 

Jack plane, iron, 12-inch 3 75 

Hand plane, small i 15 

Pliers, side cutting, large i 25 

Files 25 

Large steel vise, anvil, and horn 5 85 

Small vise i 25 

Breast drill 2 25 

Leather hand sewing awl 60 

Grommet set 2 50 

Punches, set punches, etc 35 



20 




1. Rucksack and Bed Roll 

3. Cree Three-bar Snow Shoes 

5. Three-pot Tent Stove 



2. Vreland-Forester Tent 

4. The Author's Wall Tent 

6. Tarp for Eating Table, 2K Lbs. 



CHAPTER II 

Tent Making 

THE trade of Omar has certain subtle satisfac- 
tions for the male animal which makes its 
practice peculiarly agreeable, even while the 
actual labor of tent-making is going on. Man is 
never more at home with himself than when trying 
to make a tent of sorts. It is the women who have 
got us into this prodigious tangle of house-owning, 
house-building, house-furnishing, and then wasting 
the better part of our lives paying for and repairing 
these undesirable possessions! The tent whispers 
to us of emancipation, freedom from all that, a 
home that costs comparatively nothing, that is 
better without any furniture, and that has no fixed 
abiding place. Truly that Persian poet was right 
when he objected to the palace the sultan had pre- 
sented to him, on the score that it could not be 
moved ! 

I suppose that in thirty years of camping out 
there is hardly a type of tent that I have not used 
or lived in at one time or another. It is an in- 
credible list — teepee, wall tent, shelter tent, for- 
ester, miner, handy, Nessmuk, canoe, canoe cockpit, 
lone hiker's, snow, Appalachian, tarp-and-canoe, 
wedge, Esquimo, "perfect," **Dan Beard," or 
"Campfire" — ye red gods, what a list! Six of these 

21 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORSKHOP 

I designed myself, and one, the ''forester," has been 
appropriated by the sporting-goods houses without 
even naming it so as to give its inventor a modicum 
of credit. Ah, well-a-day; would that I, too, could 
grab the cash and let the credit go! 

But of them all, I have come to boil down my 
preferences to just three, and the first of these is 
the oldest and best — would you believe it, none 
other than the wall tent! For general camping a 
little one weighing \y^ pounds and covering 6 by 
5 feet in area by 6 feet high is the one that goes 
oftenest with me. The year before the war I thought 
I had designed perfection in tents by a modified 
"Handy" of the same floor area, but with a dormer 
window on the rear slant of the roof. But that 
dormer was a nuisance to rig, and used up as much 
canvas as would make the rear roof grow to a com- 
plete wall tent with the desired window in the 
back wall. A window I would have — something big 
enough to keep the tent from turning into an oven 
in the daytime and to see out of when at work 
inside. So my final tent was a wall tent with 
14-inch walls, a sod cloth run around inside, roof 
4/^ by 6 feet long, a scrim front sewed to the door 
all around in front, and the cover flap of the door 
openable to make a veranda in front. This tent is 
always pitched by a ridge rope run from tree to 
tree, its bottom pegged down with ten stakes, and 
its eaves guyed out to the surrounding bushes, or 
stakes if there are no saplings handy. One stands 
up in it easily; there is room for three to sleep in a 
pinch; it is easily warmed by a small cylindrical 
stove, and to get more head-room we gambrel the 

22 



TENT MAKING 

roof with a couple of withes bent over the ridge 
rope inside, where they spread out the upper slant 
to increase the head-room to shoulder width. The 
stove for it is a mere shell of sheet iron, in which 
slip three of those aluminum fireless cooker pots, 
forming a circle between them, and about 9 inches 
in diameter by 6 inches deep. This shell is of 28- 
gauge sheet steel, 4 inches longer than the pots, to 
accommodate a steel folding fry pan and a nest of 
plates in the lower end. The whole thing goes into 
a canvas bucket and packs atop my bedding and 
tent roll, carried vertically by a shoulder harness 
like an army pack. The stove has a swinging door 
at the lower end and a come-out for an elbow and 
a 24-inch length of 2>^-inch pipe. The elbow takes 
the smoke out through the tent wall, and the riser 
carries it well clear of the roof. I never could see 
the use of a long stove pipe. A well-managed fire in 
the stove requires little piping to make it draw. 

This tent is my favorite for cold weather camp- 
ing, and goes with me on all hunting trips and all 
early fishing trips in the North where the nights are 
''plumb" cold. 

The second survivor of all that list of tents is 
a shanty tent, with net sides and front and a de- 
tachable cloth side to snap on as a windshield. It 
covers 6 by 5 feet in area and weighs 3>^ pounds. 
It is used for mid-summer camping, particularly 
beach camping, where your principal aim is to keep 
cool and escape mosquitoes and flies. It puts up 
with two 4^-foot poles and two 2-foot stakes at 
the rear corners. To these the four corners of the 
roof are tied, and ropes then led out to form corner 

23 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

guys. The net bar is staked down all around, and 
if there is a cold wind the extra cloth side is snapped 
on. For both woods camping after bass in June 
and September and all beach camping for salt- 
water fish, it fills the bill, is cool and airy in 
the daytime and full of the all-outdoors at night. 
The most refreshing thing to sleep in ever! 

The third tent is the laziest of all, and is used 
for lone hiking trips. It weighs 2^ pounds, all 
told, and includes a canvas pocketed stretcher bed 
weighing nine ounces and a tarp 6 by 9 feet, weigh- 
ing two pounds, including 30' feet of ridge rope. 
This tent sleeps and camps one very comfortably 
indeed. I pitch it by cutting two long, slender 
poles, using the bottom lengths of seven feet from 
each for the sides of the stretcher bed, and the rest 
to make up two pairs of shears, over which the ridge 
rope is run. The bed poles are lashed to the shear 
legs about a foot above the ground, and the tarp 
is spread over the ridge rope, pegged down flat to 
windward, and the front edge guyed out to form a 
veranda, under which a fire can be built in front of 
the cot in rainy weather. A mosquito canopy 
hangs down over face and shoulders at night, hung 
by a string from the ridge rope. A very comfort- 
able little tent for lone hiking or going with a party 
where each has his own tent and cooking gear. 

These are my three favorite tents; you prob- 
ably have your own. To make any and all of them, 
certain principles of tent design must be respected. 
No strain must come on any part of the tent ex- 
cept the seams. Up these the stress of guy ropes 
and pegs runs to the rafter or ridge rope. Tent 

24 




THE AUTHOR S MIDGET WALL TENT 

25 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

duck, eight-ounce, is now around forty cents a 
yard, but bids fair to go lower. The department 
stores do not carry brown khaki, but you can get 
a bolt of it from any of the big outfitters or from 
such manufacturers as the John H. Meyers Com- 
pany, of Fourth Avenue, New York. Most of it 
is in 30-inch widths. For general tent-making 
ordinary eight-ounce duck is good enough, but a 
bit heavy. The waterproof brown **army" tent- 
ings weigh about six ounces to the running yard, 
some four. Paraffined linen or cotton, usually dyed 
green, runs about three ounces to the yard, and now 
costs somewhere around 60 cents; used to be 38 
cents when I was making my own tents. This, 
too, can be bought from the outfitters, and comes 
36 and 40 inches wide. It is best gored down the 
middle with a single fold, as you will want your 
pegs nearer than 30 inches. The usual width be- 
tween seams is 18 inches. 

The ordinary house sewing machine is per- 
fectly capable of making tents, packs, duffle bags, 
sleeping bags, and all the usual canvas camp gear. 
It will sew anything it can drive its needle through, 
an incredible number of thicknesses, even five, 
having gone under the foot of my machine. It 
does, however, want a stout needle and stout 
thread; 40 cotton brown is best. The needle is the 
stoutest the machine will take, something that will 
punch down through the toughest canvas corner, 
even if you have to aid it with your hand on the 
wheel for the first few stitches. I usually pin my 
seams with a three-quarter-inch single overlap and 
run the upper seam first just inside the edge of the 

26 



TENT MAKING 

goods, taking out pins as I come to them. Then 
turn over and do the other edge, which goes much , 
easier. 

In cutting for the dimensions it is a good plan 
to make a miniature of the tent of stiff white paper 
to scale, particularly if it is a complicated one. 
Then from the diagonal edges take off the dimen- 
sions with an architect's scale — without which I 
would not be happy. In cutting for a complicated 
tent, like a snow or a handy, it is well to outline the 
entire tent with a skeleton string affair, run from 
poles and tacks in the floor to represent corner pegs. 
The cloth can then be cut to meet the strings, 
allowing two inches overlap for seams and hems, 
and the whole tent built with pins every six inches 
to hold it together. When just right and with 
overlap enough allowed on all seams, take it apart, 
section by section, and sew each one up on the 
machine. Then assemble the sections until the 
entire tent is done. 

For a wall tent the roof is to be made first. In 
my small one the roof was a rectangle 9 by 6 feet, 
sewed up out of two 40-inch-wide lengths of par- 
affined muslin, with one-inch laps down the center 
of each gore. It was then hemmed all around. 
The walls were next gotten out, 16 inches high by 
6 feet long, and hemmed along the bottoms. The 
tops were then sewed inside the lap of the roof 
hems, so that the latter would project out an inch 
and leave a hem for grommet holes for the side- 
wall guys. The two ends were cut and sewed 
and finally run in under both end hems of the roof. 
Grommets were then put in at the ends of each 

27 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

seam, and I then had a plain wall tent — with no 
modern conveniences — hot as thunder in the day- 
time and breathy at night, for paraffined muslin 
will not pass air through its weave. So I set it up 
and cut out a two-foot triangular window in the 
peak of the rear wall, filling it with fine-mesh scrim. 
The piece cut out hangs down in clear weather, 
and can be hauled up under a hood run out on the 
rear ridge rope in cold, blowy seasons. I find that 
a foot length of triangular hood stretched out on 
the ridge rope from the sides of the window will 
shield it from rain. For a door I wanted first, a 
sill a foot high, to keep sand and dirt from being 
tracked into the tent and keep out small visitors 
while I was away in the woods. The door could 
be made about four foot six to the top and be 
eighteen inches wide before running into the peak 
of the roof, so this much canvas was cut out and 
added to, with long, flaring diagonals, so that it 
would grow to a respectable shade at some four feet 
from the tent. I did not sew up the remainder 
except above the flap, where it should be tightly 
waterproof. There are times when the whole front 
of the tent should be open to let in the warmth 
and cheer of the camp fire. The sill, then, was made 
so it could be unlaced from the grommets at its 
edges and the whole thing turned back. 

Now, in fighting black flies, punkies, and mos- 
quitoes I have come to learn that no net front 
except one sewed to the tent all along its inside 
edges is worth a whoop. The one for this tent was 
cut with a much wider angle than the roof peak, 
so that it would fall in easy folds, with a foot of lap 

28 



TENT MAKING 

below the sill. Lifting this, one could get inside 
easily, or it could be raised like a curtain so as to 
let in the fire heat unobstructed. 

Except for the ridge rope, which should be of 
stout >^8-inch cotton, there is no need for the addi- 
tional weight of anything heavy for the wall guys. 
I use a hank of Banks line, such as codfish are 
caught on, a green braided line ^-inch in diameter, 
and loo pounds strong. Six-foot lengths of this 
are ample for guy ropes, and very light. For peg 
ties the least aggravating and lightest are short 
two-foot lengths of common brown tape. Rope is 
mighty apt to kink and make the hardest of knots 
after a week of dampness in the duff, setting the 
knot like grim death. Tape unties more easily 
and is less bulky and heavy. 

A final addition to this tent was a light edging 
of sod cloth eight inches wide, sewn around the 
bottom hem inside. It is of the lightest brown 
muslin, and is well worth its weight and bulk, for 
the sod cloth seals many an irregularity in the 
evenness of the forest floor and keeps out enter- 
prising mosquitoes and black flies which would work 
in that way even through a considerable banking 
up of duff. More than once I have had a night 
spoiled by the unaccountable presence of mos- 
quitoes or midges which had gotten in, heaven 
knows how, but the mystery was explained when 
the flasher showed a hollow under the bottom hem 
of the tent not completely filled with leaves. A sod 
cloth, held down by the lap of one's blanket bag, 
would have sealed that hole. 

While on the important subject of insects, a 
29 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

word on the bar material to keep them out: Or- 
dinary mosquito netting is too coarse and too 
flimsy to be worth much in the woods. The hex- 
mesh bobbinet is proof against mosquitoes, but 
punkies and black flies go through it as through 
a tennis net. Cheese cloth will keep them out, but 
is stuffy and apt to draw its mesh so out of the true 
weave as to leave holes in places where they can get 
through. I have come to rely upon ecrou curtain 
scrim, which you can get in the upholstery depart- 
ment of most stores. This scrim is a fine mesh net, 
strong, and proof against mosquitoes and black flies. 

To be free from annoyance from the pestiferous 
midge the only sure-fire is a canvas, totally closed 
tent. The forest air seeps through its weave at 
night, keeping it free from breathiness, and upon 
retiring you first close and tape the front flaps, 
which will have a loose strip of light cloth sewed 
down one edge to make a seal, and then with the 
flasher hunt down and slay each and every midge, 
black fly, and mosquito that may be found on the 
tent walls. Peace will then be yours for the rest 
of the night. It is the only tent I would take into 
a pest hole like the Adirondacks in summer. 

Supposing that you have made the tent in or- 
dinary eight-ounce duck, the first thing it will re- 
quire when it comes off the machine and before 
grommeting will be waterproofing. I have used 
Nessmuk's lime-alum recipe for years. Ordinary 
duck tents waterproofed with it turn the most 
violent of thundershowers with ease, nor does the 
process add appreciably to the tent's weight. 
The recipe: *'To ten quarts of water add ten 

30 




MOSQUITO NET FRONT SHELTER TENT 




THE LONE HIKER S STRETCHER-BED TENT 
31 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

ounces of lime and four ounces of alum. Let it 
stand until clear. Fold tent and put in another 
vessel; pour the solution upon it, let it soak for 
twelve hours; then rinse in lukewarm rain water, 
stretch and dry in the sun, and the tent is ready for 
use.'' In practice I found that you had to heat 
the lime and alum solution over a fire to get the 
lime to slake. Perhaps it was the fault of the lime, 
or perhaps the alum kept it from slaking; anyway, 
if you see nothing doing with your lime, put it on 
the fire and she will soon start. An ordinary gal- 
vanized iron pail will hold ten quarts of water. 
The lime you get from any lumber concern. They 
will tell you where a building job is going on, and 
you hike over there and graft the ten ounces of 
quick lime where they are making fresh mortar. 
None of the drug store or hardware store limes are 
any good, being all slack. The alum you get at the 
drug store. 

Nessmuk's direction to fold the tent I found 
would not do with new duck canvas. There is sure 
to be a large spot somewhere in the center of the 
folds entirely untouched by the liquor even after 
twenty-four hours' submersion. I always dip in 
the tent loose until the new, fresh cloth is wetted 
through and through. It can then be folded and 
capillary attraction will draw in the solution during 
the twelve hours' submersion. The chemical reac- 
tion is a double sulphate of lime and alum which 
gradually forms in the fibers. As this is insoluble 
in fresh water, it makes the tent waterproof for all 
slants over one in four. After a shower I find the 
tent roof with a sleek, soapy feel. 
32 



TENT MAKING 

I have never tried the sugar-of-lead and alum 
process. It seems simple enough and is probably 
efficacious, as it is used by the Boy Scouts and many 
military organizations. One half pound each of 
alum and sugar-of-lead are dissolved in separate 
vessels containing four gallons of boiling rain water 
or other soft water. Allow to cool and settle until 
clear. After four hours' precipitation the clear 
liquors resulting of both solutions are poured 
together into a container holding the tent. You 
will note that it mixes to eight gallons, which will 
take care of quite a large tent. The cloth is thor- 
oughly immersed in this pickle; just how long is 
not stated, probably twelve hours, to allow the 
chemical reaction of the alum and sugar-of-lead to 
fix itself into the fibers of the cotton. As it is in- 
soluble by water, all that is now needed is to squeeze 
out the liquor, hang up tent and let dry, when the 
next rain that comes will run off down the surface 
of the cotton. 

A third process that I have used a few times 
consists in dissolving a couple of cakes of grocery- 
store paraffin in a can of turpentine. To do this 
you must heat the "turps," either in a double 
boiler or back on some safe part of the kitchen 
stove, when it will readily dissolve the cut-up 
shavings of paraffin. A pint of "turps" will take 
up a brick of paraffin. I used this once on a very 
light tent made of American drilling. I painted 
it on with a flat brush, when the "turps" evaporated, 
leaving the drill impregnated with the paraffin. 
Then I set up the tent and turned a garden hose 
spray on her. She leaked in a number of spots. 

33 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

These were repainted and the process kept up until 
it leaked nowhere. For another light tent I tried 
rubbing on the paraffin brick and following with a 
hot iron. This immediately drove in the paraffin. 
It proved water-tight, but stiff, and I am afraid 
that if used in cold weather that tent will crack. 
I was not much impressed with either of the par- 
affin processes on light goods. However, to make 
a light paraffined muslin tent, soak it in this solution 
after sewing up, and then stretch and dry. I would 
be inclined to shrink it first by soaking in the lime 
alum mixture, then dye, then finally paraffin. 

As to dyeing tents, the plain white is easier to 
find in the woods, and also easier for others to find 
while you are away. The green and brown look 
less disreputable when dirty or mildewed, and we 
are not so conspicuous in the woods. I usually dye 
my tents brown with ordinary drug-store dyes. 
They should be well stirred while in the liquor 
boiling, for, if allowed to rest, the area of tent next 
the bottom will surely take on a darker color than 
the rest. Kephart gives a tan dye, home-brewed, 
of two pounds of white-oak bark dissolved in three 
and one-half gallons of boiling water. I never tried 
it, as the ten-cent dye was so much less trouble. 

In conclusion, let me call your attention to two 
more tents that I still regard with approving 
memory. The first is the so-called *'Handy" tent, 
a little totally enclosed fellow, 6 feet wide by 5 feet 
deep and 6 feet high. It has walls 18 inches high, 
a flat front of the same shape as the ordinary wall 
tent, but the side and back roof slants are triangles, 
sloping down to the walls from the single pole in 
34 



TENT MAKING 

front, with which it is put up. This tent is my 
favorite for very insecty country, and I prefer it 
made of plain single-filling department-store eight- 
ounce duck, so that I get a constant change of air 
during the night. Its roof is so steep that the lime- 
alum process waterproofs it completely. One can 
stand up to dress in the front part of it. With two 
cots inside it is ideal for a man and his wife. When 
three men sleep side by side on the floor its six 
feet of width gives them plenty of room, and the 
front face can be set out enough to accommodate 
their feet. Three friends of mine got away with 
this stunt once in the Adirondacks, so I know. I 
do not think that sportsmen in general are suffi- 
ciently acquainted with the excellencies of this little 
tent. Only one sporting goods house makes it, so 
far as I know. 

The second tent is the good old ''Forester.'* 
Lord love us, how time flies! It was just twenty 
years ago when I designed and built the first one 
of them. It is still my favorite cold-weather tent 
when I do not want to tote a stove. All its angles 
reflect the fire-heat rays down on the sleepers. It 
is very light, only six pounds, with hood, in ordinary 
department-store duck, and it is quickly put up 
with three poles cut in the nearest thicket. No 
thunderstorm has yet gotten through the steep 
roof of that tent, waterproofed by the home lime- 
alum process. A pack of houn' dawgs once pro- 
nounced it the warmest of all open tents, for out 
of three different selections before the same fire they 
all insisted in crowding into my tent. Could any 
flattery equal that? I give here the pattern of the 

35 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

hooded forester which anyone can make for himself. 
The original open type is the one grafted by the 
various manufacturers, but it is too leaky of good 
fire heat up the ridgepole and too vulnerable to 
driving rains to suit me. I put the hood on the 
second one I made, and have never sold anyone 
an open one. 

People are always writing in, asking me, "What 
is balloon silk?" It is not silk at all, but a light- 
weight cotton fabric, close wove, of long fiber sea- 
isle cotton. It is used a good deal in fine yacht 
sails and in tent-making. Most of the big ship 
chandleries keep it in stock; also such houses as 
John Boyle, of Broome Street, New York. The 
weight is about four ounces to the yard. 

Do not try to put eyelets in tent seams. The 
temptation to do so is great, particularly in lacing 
seams like a front. But the only thing which will 
hold is the grommet. And in fastening tapes where 
a strain is to come on them, like ridge tapes to go 
around an outside pole, give yourself plenty of 
anchorage to the tape, sew it all around the edges, 
and then diagonally across the rectangle in both 
directions. 



36 



CHAPTER III 

Making Pack and Trail Gear 

MOST of us who hit the trail to the woods 
frequently as the seasons roll by love to 
plan new gear or alter something already 
manufactured to ''mold it nearer to the heart's 
desire," or else haunt the army-goods shop to pick 
up military stuff that, with a few changes, can be 
made into right serviceable woods equipment. 
Then, at the end of the year's camping, the winter 
nights see us mending and repairing this and that 
so that we may go afield bright and early next year 
with everything tip-top and good as new. 

To do all this does not necessarily presuppose a 
shop, but it does require a few special canvas and 
leather-working tools, so as to make a job of work 
of whatever we set our hands to. First and fore- 
most, the long-suffering family sewing machine 
needs two additions to make it worth while as a 
sewer of trail goods. It needs the stoutest needle 
the holder will take, and it needs sundry spools of 
at least twenty cotton weight. Your home sewing 
machine will sew anything it can drive its needle 
through, as much as five folds of canvas if necessary, 
but to do it it needs a stout needle with a big eye 
that will pass heavy thread. No light garment 
thread will answer. It may look strong as the seam 

37 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

comes off the machine and you give it a tentative 
yank, but sooner or later a strain will come on the 
very end of that seam and it will peel down and out 
like stripping a banana, and almost as easily. A 
seam of twenty brown cotton will hold almost any- 
thing in crosswise or longitudinal strain, but if by 
maneuvering the strap you can put a pull on it 
backward, over the head of the seam, so to speak — 
better put in a rivet as a stop, for this rivet will 
prevent the seam starting. 

As to what can be sewed, you can tackle all 
grades of duck canvas with confidence, including 
the heavy brown ten ounce waterproof paraffined 
duck in four thicknesses; light leather, such as 
small buckle straps; army webbing straps of all 
sorts, and paraffined muslins for light tents, which 
will not leak through the seam holes if you use a 
light needle for them. This will include nearly all 
camp gear material except heavy leather, such as 
harnesses, tump straps, and moccasins. These 
latter may be worked by rivets and sewing with 
the hand leather sewing awl. This useful little 
tool costs sixty cents at the hardware stores, and 
has a set of needles of various fineness and curves 
in its hollow handle. Behind its chuck you will 
find a metal spool holding considerable heavy black 
sewing twine. The needle selected for the work 
is put in the chuck and the end of the thread slipped 
through its eyehole. You then punch through the 
two thicknesses of leather to be sewed and run the 
trailing thread through the loop left by the needle 
in withdrawing. This tail thread is caught and 
partly drawn into the hole as you pull tight, so 

38 



MAKING PACK AND TRAIL GEAR 

that a two-thread seam is made, very strong and 
durable. 

For special tools in camp gear making I would 
put first the ^-inch grommet set, a punch and die 
costing about $2.50, by which the thimble and ring 
of the ordinary brass grommet are turned over 
neatly and the ring made to seize the canvas tightly 
by the blow of the hammer. The toothed thimble 
is easier to set, but is a snare and a delusion when 
you want it to hold. A second tool would be the 
combination eyelet punch and set, which costs 
about $3, and punches holes in leather in which 
the small eyelet thimbles are then put and set fast 
by the tool. A most useful tool, in all sorts of 
places, in making packs, etc. A third tool is the 
belt-hole punch, costing about I1.50, for making 
holes where needed in your straps. You can make 
these holes with an awl and let the buckle tongue 
wear them full, but they will always give trouble in 
wet or cold weather, and are hard to undo compared 
to a regular belt hole. 

All hardware, such as buckles, D-rings, snap 
hooks, tubular and washer rivets, etc., can be 
bought at any harness shop as you need them. Do 
not use the split rivets sold at the ten-cent stores. 
They either tear the canvas or fold up and pull 
out when a real strain comes on them. For setting 
tubular rivets a steel set punch with wide angle 
nose is the tool, and for making grommet holes in 
such obstinate stuff as ten-ounce paraffined brown 
duck get a -j^^-inch steel punch. 

This covers about all the tools really needed to 
39 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

make and repair camp gear. When it comes to 
making new stuff, the list of things that a woodser 
wants is almost endless. You can make at home 
about everything sold in the outfitting stores. I 
have made my own canvas pails even, and had 
them come out waterproof and O. K. Nearly all 
of us have our own ideas of the ideal packsack, 
sleeping bag, cook kit, and war bag. In general 
the packsack may be classified in two main di- 
visions: the square or pear-shaped bag of general 
knapsack type, and the long, cylindrical army type, 
starting from the dufile bag as its progenitor. Both 
ways are convenient and depend, I should say, on 
how you prefer to carry your tent and bedding. 
These two are the bulkiest of your trail articles, 
but the grub is always the heaviest and most com- 
pact, wherefore, to make your pack hang right, the 
place the heaviest thing is to go is the first consid- 
eration. My experience has been that if weight is 
packed high it tends to make the bag sag away 
from the shoulders and enormously increases the 
shoulder pressure and fatigue. If carried low the 
pack hugs in tight to the back. In both types, 
then, the heavy weights, ammunition, canned grub, 
and the like, should go in the bottom of the pack. 
Above them the tent, then war bags of small stuff, 
and finally the blanket roll. In the ideal pack both 
hips and shoulders should take part in sustaining 
the load. To do this in practice one puts one's 
fists or a rolled coat or sweater under the belt, 
where they will bear against the bottom of the knap- 
sack, or, with the long type of pack like the Alaska 
40 




ARMY TYPE PACK 

o 



THE DULUTH PACK 




®5^=S»s® -,>>^ (gsssnj^-^ 




GROMMET SET 



RUCK SACK, FRONT VIEW 
41 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

and the army, a hip brace is provided, with offsets 
and a strap which engage the hips, tipping the pack 
at a slight angle to the shoulders. 

As to carrying strap fastenings, I am not yet 
convinced whether two straps set a few inches 
apart at a V with separate anchorage seams, or a 
D-ring with both straps coming from a single point, 
or a yoke curving around the neck, is the best. 
The two-strap is the staunchest, will not let the 
pack sling out of place on a sudden lean, and holds 
it flat across the back. The D-ring anchorage 
brings both straps crossing over the big muscles of 
the neck, but it tends to draw the pack to a peak 
like a bag, and it allows it to slue easily when one is 
thrown out of balance. The yoke fits snug, but is 
hot and likely to chafe. For the two-strap anchor- 
age I use broad straps of thin, strong leather sewed 
down the canvas with D-rings at their tops. The 
carrying straps are riveted in these and have broad 
sliders of heavy leather on them which can be 
slipped into position over the shoulders, thus dis- 
tributing the pressure and preventing stoppage of 
blood circulation. For the V anchorage, with both 
straps starting from a single large D-ring, I use a 
canvas patch of the same goods as the pack, sewed 
to it with double seams all around the edge, and 
with cross seams running down from each edge of 
the D-ring. This multitude of seams makes it 
proof against being pulled out by a backward tear. 
There is never any danger from the weight of the 
pack itself, because that strain comes down the 
whole seam. For a 2-inch D-ring, a triangular 
patch of doubled canvas eight inches wide by five 

42 



MAKING PACK AND TRAIL GEAR 

inches deep, with the neck slipped through the ring, 
has proved strong enough for durable service. For 
a yoke I make one, straps and all, of the same 
canvas as the pack, ten inches wide by four inches 
deep where it sews across the back of the pack. 
The curve of the yoke is a half-circle on a three-inch 
radius or six-inch diameter, widening in a long 
slant until, at the lower ends where the buckle 
comes, the strap is but an inch wide. The strap 
part is made by simply turning under the edges of 
the goods one-half inch on each side and sewing 
the two faces with a seam down each edge and two 
or three down the middle. This is a strong strap. 
Its principal trouble is that canvas will not hold 
eyelets well, so that the buckle tongue sooner or 
later breaks them out. I prefer sewing with button- 
hole stitch wherever, on adjustment, the straps 
show to need a buckle hole. To fasten the yoke 
to the pack it needs two seams run all around the 
edge and two diagonals across the corners. A rivet 
put in at the two upper corners will prevent the 
seam starting if it is to be used for very heavy 
loads. For an ordinary forty-pound load the above 
scheme is plenty secure enough with twenty cotton 
thread. 

For straps we have the choice of leather or army 
webbing. I find that the pairs of cartridge yoke 
straps sold at the army goods stores for 50 cents a 
pair make good packsack straps. They are used 
to support the heavy army cartridge carrier, and 
run over the shoulders like a pair of suspenders, 
with hooks at the lower ends and adjustable buckles. 
They are made of wide-woven olive drab webbing, 

43 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

fining down to narrow at the ends. Cutting off 
one end of each and taking off the metal retaining 
collar which holds each pair together, I rivet them 
around the pack D-ring with two tubular rivets. 
The cut off ends are put on the pack to engage the 
hooks of the other ends of the straps, taking the 
place of buckles. The adjustable sliding buckle 
does the rest in fitting the pack to one's personal 
measurements. 

Many of us are far from any army-goods supply 
store, but we can all get leather straps. I prefer 
the i>^-inch strap of fine strong leather and pro- 
vide it with a pair of sliders of thick leather 8 
inches long by lyi inches wide. A slit is cut about 
an inch from top and bottom of these pieces, and 
they are then slipped on the strap. To use the 
buckle at the end of each strap you can either cut 
it off with two inches of the strap fastened to it 
and then sew these pieces to the bottom of the 
pack with the hand sewing awl, or else cut the 
buckle loose entirely and mount it in a canvas 
anchorage of its own, sewed to the pack canvas on 
the machine. Very little strain comes on these 
buckles. They should go well out toward the 
lower outer edges of the pack; the lower the flatter 
the pack will hang. Do not try to rivet on leather 
straps to the canvas. The rivets will surely pull 
out, tearing a seam in the canvas in doing so, or 
maybe taking a strip of the canvas with them. 

For packsacks, duffle bags, and such camp gear 
I do not think you can beat ten-ounce waterproof 
paraffined duck canvas. All the yachting-goods 
stores and camp outfitters carry it in stock in 2q- 

44 



MAKING PACK AND TRAIL GEAR 

and 37-inch widths. It is waterproof, so you are 
protected against driving spray in a canoe, rain,, 
and upsets. It is strong, easily sewed on the home 
machine, holds grommets well, does not get smeary 
in the heat of the sun or stiff in icy weather. I have 
tried it in all climates and weathers and prefer it 
to any lighter but less dependable stuff. It comes 
dyed a dark brown, a good color for all camp gear. 
Of it I make packs, side-opening duffle bags, pails, 
anything wanted strong and waterproof. For 
lighter stuff, such as cook kit, grate and baker 
covers, I use a light brown strong drilling. For 
food bags of all sizes, paraffined muslin, which you 
can buy from the outfitters or make yourself by 
immersing the goods in a solution of paraffin bricks, 
shaved fine, turpentine, and a little beeswax. 
One friend makes a very good solution by dissolv- 
ing them in gasoline, setting the solution away 
for a considerable time for the slow process of dis- 
solving to take place. 

In sewing up the goods the edge-to-edge outside 
seam is the neatest, covered with a turn of brown 
tape. It is no trick at all. The tape is started 
folded over the seam and held with a few pins. 
As the work feeds under the machine foot you fold 
the tape double over the edge of the seam, making 
sure that both top and bottom are being taken in 
by the needle. For turning in a hem you just fold 
over the heavy brown canvas and crease it. Its 
body of paraffin will make it lie flat, tight down, 
until held there by the thread. 

I give here two designs of packsacks, the square 
and the army type. The working drawings of the 

45 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

patterns will be all anyone needs to make up one. 
A brief description of the merits of various pack 
designs will not be amiss, however. I give you first 
the Duluth pack, from the home of the pack country, 
northern Minnesota. A good large size would be the 
29 inches by 28 inches by 6 inches, made of ten- 
ounce brown paraffined duck canvas. Front, bot- 
tom, back, and flap is in one long strip, 96 inches 
long. Cut out two 28-inch by 6-inch sides and 
sew to strip with outside seam covered with a 
doubling of brown tape. You have then, roughly, 
a canvas box of the pack dimensions. Before sew- 
ing up it should have been hemmed along top and 
bottom edges and the D-ring and buckle anchor- 
ages sewed on. For a wide pack like this I would 
prefer two carrying strap D-ring anchorages, spaced 
about six inches apart. Facing to the rear on the 
bottom are the two carrying strap buckles, and 
facing to the front the three flap buckles for >2-inch 
straps. The tails of these are next sewed on the 
hem of the flap, and the pack is done. For a smaller 
20-inch by 20-inch by 4-inch pack I would use the 
single large D-ring in the center of the back and 
lead out my shoulder straps diagonally. 

The second pack shown is a modification of the 
army regulation, and is a type of the long, cylin- 
drical pack that sits low and takes some support 
from the hips. It is made of a single sheet of 37- 
inch brown waterproof duck, 56 inches long. It is 
cut out, as shown in the drawing, to leave flaps 

15 inches wide by 10 inches deep at the bottom and 

16 inches at top. The edges are then finished all 
around with doubled tape, and the pack is ready 

46 




SIDE-OPENING DUFFLE BAG 




IhioxnaiaivS oj ^i^-yTy^. "Pack 

DESIGN FOR ARMY TYPE PACK 



47 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

for carrying and tying straps. The latter are 
plain 3/(-inch by 36-inch leather straps, sewed for 
six inches in the middle to the back of the pack. 
They are three in number, the top and bottom ones 
two inches from the edges of the wide part of the 
pack and the other one central. Any form of 
carrying strap that you prefer can next be secured 
on the back. For a narrow pack like this I would 
prefer a large two-inch D-ring anchorage at the top 
and two buckle anchorages sewed to the lower cor- 
ners just above the lower flap. 

On the upper flap is next sewn a bellows pocket 
with flap, 12 inches by 12 inches being about right. 
This may be of lighter canvas, but I prefer the same 
husky waterproof brown duck, as it is to hold grub 
and will be the thing on your pack most exposed to 
rain. Two D-rings to secure this mess kit bag are 
also sewn to the rear edge of this pocket. The pack 
is now done. To use, you roll up tent, blankets, 
canned things, etc., to make a long, cylindrical roll 
about 30 inches long by 10 inches in diameter. 
Lay this in the center of your pack, fold the cloth 
around it with bottom flap tucked in, and secure 
with the three tie straps. The food pocket is then 
filled with your paraffined muslin food bags, dry 
poke of socks, night toque, etc., and folded over 
the top of the pack, where two thongs from its 
D-rings secure it to the upper tie strap. Needless 
to say, this is a summer pack. Still, with a light 
sleeping bag of one-inch quilting, one could tote a 
winter outfit for short hikes, putting the tent above 
the quilt bag. The pack itself makes a fair ground 
cloth to lay under one's bedding on the browse, 

48 



MAKING PACK AND TRAIL GEAR 

being 56 inches long, 16 inches wide at head and 
foot, and ;^6 inches wide where one's body comes. 
A third pack that will bear description is the 
little rucksack, for short hikes of a few days' dura- 
tion. This bag is made of tight-woven water- 
proofed brown or green canvas of about four-ounce 
weight. It consists essentially of a square bag 
16 inches high by 18 inches wide, thus requiring a 
piece of canvas 32 by 18 inches to begin with. 
This is hemmed top and bottom and then sewed 
with inside seam; that is, sewed edge to edge and 
turned inside out. This is of course the last opera- 
tion in practical making, for the strap anchorages, 
pockets, and upper flap go on first. The strap an- 
chorage is a mere triangle of canvas sewed to the 
top, with the i^-inch webbing strap slipped under 
it to come out in a 45-degree V and secured with 
several seams driven through the triangle and 
webbing and pack canvas. This webbing goes to 
two D-rings at the lower corners of the bag, and is 
adjustable by a "suspender adjuster" sliding flat 
ring, which can be purchased to fit the strap at a 
harness shop. On the front of the pack is sewed a 
bellows pocket 7 by 7 inches, with flap, and cen- 
trally located at the top rear edge is a closing flap 
6 inches by 6^ inches, oval in shape, and finished all 
around the edge with doubled tape. A row of grom- 
mets is put in all around the top hem after the pack 
is sewed up. They begin at the two lower corners 
of the flap, and then are spaced three and two inches 
alternately around the hem. A cotton rope is 
roved through them and secured by a knot beyond 
each grommet hole in the upper flap, so that the 

49 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

rope cannot get out of place or get lost. After 
filling the bag, this rope is pulled taut, when the 
bag closes up until its upper edges nearly meet. 
The flap is then pulled down over it and secured. 
In the manufactured article this is done for both 
pocket flap and pack flap by a snap button, but a 
woodsman would prefer a regular button with 
buttonhole, as holding more securely, no matter 
how tight the pack is filled. The snap button has 
a way of coming undone of its own accord in going 
through scraggs that will call out many a curse 
from the bedeviled putdoorsman who may have 
lost something irreplaceable out of his pack thereby. 

This little rucksack will hold an astonishing lot 
, of plunder. Putting the grub, ammunition, extra 
clothes, dry poke, and a tent tarp into it, I will roll 
up my sleeping bag atop of it and go anywhere, in 
reasonably mild weather, with it. It weighs about 
twelve ounces. 

We now come to duffle bags — easy to make, one 
of the best rigs for a canoe or hunting trip yet de- 
vised. Two of them carried side by side in a leather 
harness ought to take all the outfit any man should 
be allowed, and they simply cannot get sunk in an 
upset nor drowned in a heavy rain storm. The 
plain 8-inch by 29-inch duffle bag is made by cut- 
ting a 27-inch length from your roll of 29-inch 
brown duck paraffined ten-ounce, hemming the 
upper end, sewing an edge-to-edge double seam, 
and turning the thing inside out, when the seam will 
come inside. A nine-inch circle is next cut and 
sewn into one end, with a finish of turned-over 
tape, and a row of grommets is put in the upper 

50 



MAKING PACK AND TRAIL GEAR 

end, with a pucker rope to tie it in. If you want a 
neck, sew in a length of brown drilling before mak- 
ing up the bag, and if a handle in the center side 
appeals to you, get one out of your brown canvas 
goods and sew the handle ends to your bag while 
the canvas is still out flat. 

A long dufile bag, end-opening, does not appeal 
to me much, for the reason that so much has to be 
pulled out of it and dropped in the leaves (where 
it seeks a hiding place) before the thing you want can 
be found. The side-opening bag is more elaborate, 
but is a winner for general camping or for carrying 
the grub for a large party. To make it, first of all, 
a piece of your brown paraffined duck 22 inches 
long is cut from the 37-inch width of goods. Next, 
two circles 8//^ inches in diameter for the ends, and 
finally two pieces of brown drilling 8 inches by 
twelve inches will be wanted for end fillers. These 
various pieces will sew up to make a side-opening 
bag 8^ inches by 22 inches long. The handiest 
places to put the carrying handles will be on the 
ends, for you will always be pulling those bags out 
of the bottom of the canoe, and there's a handy 
pjace to grab! Make those end straps of brown 
canvas 6% inches hy i}4 inches, and sew them to 
the ends, reinforcing with a bit of leather and two 
rivets. 

Inside the bag will be one of its chief conven- 
iences, rows of pockets to hold spoons, forks, salt 
shakers, and such small deer, or personal belongings 
if you are using the bag to carry your main outfit. 
This pocket material is of brown drilling, sewn in 
in ten-inch loops in three seams about seven inches 

51 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

apart, and the cloth is nine inches deep, although 
the seam at the bottom is only eight. This leaves 
the three pockets loose and baggy, so they will 
hold a good deal. Three more pockets are run, 
overlapping the upper row three inches, so you have 
six pockets in which to stow things. 

Now as this bag is to be carried by a couple of 
straps passing around it through a strap handle, it 
needs two short pieces of leather sewed on the 
bottom where the straps will pass through. After 
doing this the bag is ready to assemble. The two 
lips are first hemmed with a broad i,^-inch hem, 
and then the round ends sewn in with tape finish- 
ing, and finally the drill end fillers are sewn in 
along the bag edges and the top half of the circular 
ends, cutting out a half-circle in the goods to match. 
When done you have a deep side-opening bag with 
circular ends and bottom. A stick is next slipped 
into the hem above the inside pockets and two 
grommets are put in at the ends of both lips. To 
close, fill the bag with eight-inch friction-top cans of 
butter, pork, bacon, etc., eight-inch paraffined muslin 
food bags, until it is full and its contents form a 
long, eight-inch cylinder. Then match the lips and 
roll them together around the stick. Secure with 
the outside straps, and you have a waterproof 
side-opening duffle bag, ideal for canoe trips or 
back-packing. To use in camp, drive in two stakes 
20 inches apart and hang the bag up on them by 
the grommet holes in the lip stick hem. It will 
then hang open with the rows of pockets up and the 
contents ready to hand. The cook will appreciate 
the convenience of that bag when he starts a 

52 



MAKING PACK AND TRAIL GEAR 

meal for eight, with the thing hung up handy to 
his fire. 

If using it for hiking, the tent and sleeping bag 
or blanket roll form the cylindrical center of the 
pack, and one's small personal duffle occupies the 
pockets. There is room in one end for grub stores — 
the lower end if you want it to carry well. I would 
recommend two of them as a good pack for the 
hunting *'sport," who has most of his truck carried 
by guides. For a stand-on-your-own-feet hiker it 
has nothing much to attract, as the thing has little 
use in camp except to form a wall pocket to hang 
up your spare duffle in. No pack that I take along 
can be useless in camp. The army pack you can 
sleep on as a ground cloth. Best of all the light- 
trip rigs is Dwight Franklin's webbing carrying 
harness, with his tent and sleeping bag roll forming 
the outside of the pack itself. He loses no weight 
in toting anything that has not a use in camp. 



S3 



CHAPTER IV 

Home-Made Tent Stoves and 
Cook Kits 

I LONG ago became converted to the tent stove. 
It won its way into my heart by sheer merit 
and against the prejudices of years of camping 
out before an open fire. Said fire required an axe 
to be taken along that weighed more than a stove; 
it required at least an hour's chopping each day, 
and that hour when one was tired out from the 
day's hunt and longed to take one's ease. The 
campfire was bright, light, and cheerful while it 
lasted, but all too soon it relapsed into smoky 
embers. And there was no getting away from the 
drifts of smoke that would waft into the tent and 
stay there! In windy, rainy, or snowy weather it 
was an acrid eye-watering nuisance, no less! The 
matter came to the parting of the ways when my 
State passed fire laws requiring a license to build 
an open fire in the woods. There were no restric- 
tions on closed fire, videlicet a tent stove; but the 
license for an open camp fire had to be sought from 
the fire warden of the township in which I proposed 
to camp. He made matters altogether too complex 
and "sivilized" for me, so I set about designing 
my own tent stoves, for none of the outfitters 

54 



TENT STOVES AND COOK KITS 

carried anything that weighed less than ten pounds. 
That was an impossible weight for a hiker! 

It seemed to me an unnecessary weight. A tent 
stove, in the last analysis, is a shell of sheet iron. 
Light 28-gauge steel is amply heavy enough. I 
even had a friend who made a very good stove out 
of a large tin can. Now the stove and the cook kit 
seem to me to be the most intimately connected. 
The one should form the container for the other, 
and the whole thing should go in a brown drilling 
bag, so as not to get one's duffle smutty. This 
much settled on, all I had to do was to wrap sheet 
iron around my cook kit and I had a stove to carry 
it in, adding thereby about two pounds to the 
weight to be carried — less than the weight of even 
a half axe. 

This wrapping business is of course figuratively 
speaking; in practice the wrapping consisted of a 
well-made stove in 28-gauge sheet iron that just 
fitted outside the two pots of my cook kit. Camp 
meals require two or more utensils boiling something 
at the same time, to be followed by a quick session 
with the fry pan, when the whole meal is ready to 
be served and no time lost, x^s a boiling utensil I 
have always been very partial to the four-quart 
aluminum fireless cooker pot. It comes 7^ inches 
in diameter by 6}A inches deep, with a cover held 
on by snap hooks on the sides and provided with a 
flat lifting handle. Two of them weigh a pound, 
and will boil mulligan and potatoes or rice of quantity 
for four hungry men. Inside you can pack a set 
of plates, deep mixing tins, and the six-inch fry 
pan with folding handle — a whole cook kit; for if 

SS 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

the mixing tins are aluminum they make good bake 
pans by pouring a batter into one, setting it in the 
stove hole, putting a shallow tin plate on top, and 
covering it with a pile of live coals. 

I first intended making a single cylindrical stove 
that would take both pots end to end in it, but the 
trouble with this is that it has only one hole when 
set up, and a one-hole stove is a sheer aggravation. 
You need two holes to cook a meal on. All right; 
put the pots side by side^ then, and make an oblong 
stove to just fit around them, and you will have 
used no more metal than with the simple cylinder. 
So this was the form the stove finally took. A sheet 
of 28-gauge iron was first gotten out, 7 inches wide 
by ify inches long. This was bent around the two 
pots and riveted where the metal overlapped in 
the middle of one flat side. A top was next made, 
with edges turned over to fit down on the oblong 
sheet iron sides and lap three-eighths of an inch, 
when rivets secured it at 3-inch intervals. In this 
top was cut two holes Gyi inches in diameter to 
just fit the two aluminum pots. Between them was 
a narrow bridge left by the overhang of both pot 
covers. To prevent this bridge sagging in the heat, 
I riveted inside a narrow reinforcement, a V-shaped 
piece of 28-gauge. I also cut out two hole covers 
7 inches in diameter and provided with three angle 
stop pieces riveted underneath to keep the covers 
centrally located on the holes. I am not in favor of 
a holeless stove for two reasons: first, because you 
cannot manage the fire properly without being able 
to take ofi^ the lids; and second, because you often 
have a fine bed of live coals in the stove which would 

56 



TENT STOVES AND COOK KITS 

cook splendidly if only you could get the pot bot- 
toms down to it, which you cannot do with a hole- 
less stove. Anyone who has waited for hours for 
things to cook on a holeless stove will know what I 
mean. 

This stove had no bottom. In setting it up I 
get a flat rock, or two of them, and chink up around 
the bottom edges. If more draft is needed than one 
can get through the door, remove a chink stone or 
two and she will draw like a major and all be well. 
Managing a tent stove so it will not smoke is purely 
a matter of draughts — letting in air enough when 
wanted to cause complete combustion and prevent 
smoke. This you cannot do satisfactorily with a 
bottomed stove, because you are limited to the 
door draught, which is often not enough. 

I put a 3 by 3-inch door in the rear end with a 
sliding cover in two metal grooves riveted to the 
shell, and a chimney flue in the bottom of the front 
end 2 by 3 inches, with lips arranged to engage the 
bottom of the chimney pipe. This hole was put in 
the bottom, not the top, of the stove, because the 
front pot is sure to blank it off when in its hole. 
It draws just as well if put in the bottom of the 
stove. 

The chimney itself was two 16-inch lengths of 
2^-inch pipe. The bottom section had a 2 by 
3-inch hole notched out of its lower side and pro- 
vided with two strips of metal reinforcing, which 
allowed the lips projecting from front end hole of 
the stove to slip in between them and the walls of 
the pipe. To set up, you put the stove on a flat 
stone, and then shove down the bottom section of 

57 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

stovepipe over the lips, when it would stand fast 
upright at the end of the stove. The top section 
I originally made to telescope inside the bottom, 
but this was a mistake, for after a few camps the 
bottom section got dirty and caked inside, and the 
top section would stick in it abominably. I finally 
made the top section with a slight draw in its end, 
so it could be put together like ordinary stc)ve pipe. 
It might seem that a chimney only 32 inches high 
would not draw well, but such is by no means the 
case. If the fire is well managed, so as to keep a 
column of hot air in the pipe it will draw fine if 
only 14 inches high. 

This stove, pipes and all, weighed two and 
three-quarter pounds, and went with its pots in 
place in an oilcloth wrapper which formed my 
ground cloth under the sleeping bag at night. The 
two pipes went side by side on top of the stove 
and proved an excellent place to carry fresh meat 
in, v/rapped in the butcher's paraffined paper. 
I took it on many hiking trips into the mountains 
during the hunting season. We set it up in the 
door of the tent and used it for both cooking and 
tent warming, besides being free from all fire 
warden's restrictions. To keep the pot bottoms 
from coming down on the hot coals I bored two 
A-inch holes on each side of the stove three 
inches down from the top. Through these went 
long ^-inch bolts on which the pot bottom rested. 

Meanwhile I had by no means forgotten the 
possibilities of a cylindrical tent stove. It takes up 
less room than the oblong, and is easier set up, 
besides giving a higher and deeper fire. When the 

58 




1. 3 Lb. Cylindrical Tent Stove 2. 2^ Lb. Two-hole Stove 

3. Side-opening Food Bags 
4. Leather Ditty Bag 5. The Growler Cook Kit 




THE AUTHOR S TWO-HOLE HIKING STOVE 



59 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

three-section fireless cooker pots came out, all three 
forming a circle to go in one hole, I had what I 
wanted to make the cylindrical stove a success; 
for now you had something that would boil coffee 
in one, rice or mulligan in another, and bake a 
corn cake in the third. The rather shallow set, 
six inches deep, is the one adapted for camp use. 
Why? Because the other and deeper set is meant 
for a source of heat reaching the walls of the pots 
as well as the bottoms, whereas in a camp stove 
only the bottoms are reached. The fireless cooker 
people intended these shallow sets to go, one above 
the other, in the same hole, but we campers had 
other uses in mind, for that set would make possible 
an ideal tent stove and cook kit for two, to go in a 
small closed tent. The set is nine inches in diameter 
and six inches deep. Allowing a three-inch coal 
bed and an inch of fire space above that, I made 
the height of the stove ten inches and rolled up a 
steel shell to fit the set snugly. All it then needed 
was a three-inch square sliding door in the bottom 
front and a circular come-out hole lYz inches in 
diameter cut in the back, with its upper edge four 
inches below the top to allow the pots a good 
depth. As this stove was to go with my walled 
tent, I decided to risk an elbow, so as to have my 
stove-hole in the wall instead of the roof of the 
tent. Such an elbow, seven inches long over all, 
will pack inside the stove. It has a draw at the 
stove end so as to drive in snugly into the hole. 
A single length of stovepipe 24 inches long by 1)4. 
inches in diameter was made, something that would 
lie snug atop my pack. This had a draw to fit into 
60 



TENT STOVES AND COOK KITS 

the elbow looking up, and carried the sparks well 
away from the roof. This stove weighs two and 
one-half pounds complete, or four and one-half 
pounds with the pots in it. There is plenty of room 
to stow plates, dishes and a nine-inch steel fry pan 
with folding handle in the lower end. To bake 
with it I use two deep aluminum plates ten inches 
in diameter. The batter is poured into one, greased, 
and the other plate inverted over it. After raising 
and browning on the bottom, it is capsized and the 
top browned. Needless to say this is done on the 
open top of the stove; also that I provided a sheet 
metal lid for the top when the stove was being used 
for tent heating. 

To do this sheet-metal work one can either make 
up the stove in cardboard and pin it together, 
when the whole thing can be taken to a tinsmith 
and let him make it up, or one can do the job him- 
self, // he first makes him the indispensable sheet 
metal folder. The tinsmith has all sorts of con- 
veniences, like rollers, headers, and crimpers for 
putting in draws, and he will turn out a workman- 
like job. The second stove I had made by a tin- 
smith for the price of $3.50; and he turned it out 
with a reinforcing bead along top and bottom edge 
of the stove, smooth seams, and workmanlike fits 
throughout. However, with a pair of tinsmith's 
shears, a folder, drills, and rivets, one can do the 
job on the home bench. The ''folder'* is a pair of 
oak boards with stout hinges, spaced close together 
so as to withstand the strain of bending sheet 
metal. Inside the upper board is a rabbet in which 
is sunk a stout strip of steel, about ^-inch metal, 

61 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

say 2 inches wide by i6 inches long. Under the 
forward edge of it is a shallow rabbet yi inch deep. 
You slip the edge of your sheet in there and fold 
the upper board over on the lower. It will bend a 
lip over double on the sheet. Two of these lips in 
opposite directions form the seam for your pipe or 
joint. Having no roller machine, you can bend up 
the pipe over a wooden mandrel with hammer and 
vise, catch the lip seams and secure by hammering 
them flat. Riveting jobs are a mere matter of drill- 
ing with a breast drill, inserting the ordinary round- 
head soft steel rivet, and upsetting with a hammer 
over a piece of iron pipe. By dint of careful ham- 
mering it is remarkable what serviceable, if not 
handsome, tin work can be done at home. My 
friend, Arthur Stratton, made a splendid reflector 
baker that way, and I may as well describe it here. 
The dimensions are given in the drawings. Having 
gotten out and bent his top, bottom, and back 
piece all in one strip, he turned over the edges, cut 
the two sides, and riveted and soldered them to- 
gether; for Strat wanted to have his baker water- 
tight, so as to use it as a dish-washing container in 
camp. (By the way, his tent was folded to just fit 
inside the baker, so he lost no space by it on the 
trail.) An iron brace of ^4-inch by 18-inch by 
-^V-i^ch strip iron was next fitted inside the baker, 
so as to turn in flat against the side when not 
wanted, and turn up to form a rest for the bake pan 
when in use. This was riveted through the sides 
of the baker just loose enough to turn stifliy. Legs 
were next added, riveted to the sides and provided 
with a stop rivet to hold them secure when the 

62 




CYLINDRICAL STOVE WITH THREE-PART COOKING POTS 




OVEN STOVE 



THE STRATTON REFLECTOR 
BAKER 



63 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

legs were turned down to rest on the ground, and 
the baker was done. It worked fine. Many a 
good mess of corn bread and biscuits have I eaten 
from it. He had an upper lip on it, so it could be 
hung over the stove side, when its weight would 
pull it in snug against the stove wall. 

On lone hiking trips I have taken along the 
little folding grate that came with the Stopple cook 
kit. It weighs little, folds to 4 inches by 8 inches, 
and goes in a canvas bag that also holds spoons and 
forks, so as to keep them and it from getting the 
rest of the things in the pack dirty. The utensils 
for the go-light safari consist of a lo-inch aluminum 
plate, stowed in the back of the pack, an enamel- 
ware cup hung on the belt with a thong, an oval 
aluminum baker 9 inches by 7 inches by lyi inches, 
with cover, a 6-inch steel fry pan with folding 
cover, a 6-inch tin mixing pan for cake batters, 
and a three-quart kidney-shaped tin growler 8 
inches wide by 9 inches deep by 2^ inches thick, 
with cover. In these arid days I suppose that 
utensil is no longer manufactured, but it is a whale 
for small and sudden camps, and goes with me often, 
slung in a canvas water pail that just fits over it, 
with a strap over shoulder, so that the thing lies 
flat under one's left arm. In it I carry fresh meat, 
packages of bacon, butter, and small perishable 
foodstuffs generally. 

To cook up a meal, the little grate is set up, the 
growler filled with the elements of a stew or a grab 
or two of rice in water, the baker unlimbered and 
set on the grate with a batter in it. The first flare-up 
of the fire starts off the growler; afterwards a bed 

64 



TENT STOVES AND COOK KITS 

of coals is maintained under the grate, so that the 
cake will not come to grief. After fifteen minutes 
it is done and set to one side, on edge, to keep hot 
and the mixing pan goes on the grate to brew coffee or 
tea. Finally the fry pan is put on to do me a hunk of 
steak, and when that is done the rice or spuds in the 
growler report ready, and the meal is served. A light 
kit. The whole of it does not weigh two pounds. 

This grate had two objections: It was not large 
enough, and its legs were too spindly. It seemed 
to me that a grate could be devised that would fold 
up to a mere bundle of rods. So I got me some 
yVi^ch rodding and made a collapsible grate. The 
two side frames have the legs eyed to them. Across 
the grate you lay as many rods as seem needful 
according to the business in hand. The hooks on 
their ends prevent them from coming off. This 
grate is i6 inches long by 8 inches wide, and will 
accommodate a fry pan and a pot at the same time. 
It weighs a pound. Anvil, vise, pliers, and hammer 
were all the tools needed to make it. 

All wire grates are open to the objection of windy 
weather blowing most of the heat out from under 
the pots. A folding three-sided open stove is easily 
made, i6 inches long by 8 inches wide, with hinges 
as shown, of 28-gauge sheet metal. A stout bar of 
iron I inch by yi inch by 16 inches long goes across 
the open front at the top, and forms a rest for all 
pots set on the stove. Its two turn-in lips have 
stud bolts set in them, with wing nuts outside. The 
ends of these studs project through holes in the top 
corners of the side, and, clamping up the wing nuts, 
the stove is ready for use. 

65 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

From there to a folding camp stove is but a 
step. It needs a fourth side to engage the two ends 
with skewer rods, and a cover with two holes and 
turned-down lip. Dimensions of 8 inches by 8 
inches by i6 inches will make a handy little two- 
hole stove. Door in one end and chimney flue 
with lips as in the Forester stove to take two lengths 
of 2^-inch pipe i6 inches long. Back and sides 
fold up, front is laid on them, and the whole nested 
in the cover. Put the entire contraption in a flat 
bag big enough to permit sliding in the pipes side 
by side, and you have your folding rig. It answers 
very well where your existing cook kit does not 
happen to fit any particular stove. 

For a hunting party occupying a lo- by 15-foot 
wall tent, a larger stove than any of these will be 
needed, something with an oven in it, eight feet of 
stovepipe, and room enough inside to hold night-logs. 
As this is packed by horse or canoe, its weight and 
bulk do not matter. Now, in designing a stove of 
this character, one decides first on the size of the 
oven and builds the rest of the stove around that. 
To take an ordinary 9-inch plate or dish, the oven 
should be 10 inches deep and the same wide. Eight 
inches will be enough for the height. Such an oven 
will go well in a stove 24 inches long by 12 inches 
wide by II inches high, of 20-gauge sheet iron, as 
giving the right strength for these dimensions. A very 
good design is shown in the working drawings herewith 
(page 6^). Two 8-inch pot holes are cut in the top, 
offset as shown, and the flat spaces reinforced under- 
neath with bars of iron i inch by iVinch. Offset- 
ting the holes gives more room for small diametered 
66 



TENT STOVES AND COOK KITS 

cooking utensils, like a coffee pot, to find a place 
while the larger pots set in or on the holes. The 
oven is located well forward, and the chimney 
uptake, for four-inch pipe, is in the front forward 
corner, where it will draw the flames over the oven 
top. A large filling door is put in the side to add 
small chips, and the rear end is one large door, on 
hinges, hanging downward, so that billets can be 
fed in for night wood while using the stove for tent 
warming. By opening the side door one can get 
abundant draft when the fire threatens to smoke 
for lack of air. This stove will need a bottom to 
give it strength and rigidity, and is the better for 
legs, so that it will stand above the forest duff and 
not start a smoking ground fire in the tent. It 
weighs about 20 pounds. 

The whole art of running a non-smoking tent 
stove is the judicious use of firewood and drafts. 
On starting up, the lids should be off and all drafts 
wide open. A brisk fire is then started, and when 
giving pure flame the lids are put on, when the flame 
darts for the chimney as the one available outlet. 
Once going up the chimney, it heats the walls of 
its pipe and so establishes a column of hot air 
which is your draft. Even a short length of pipe 
kept hot will take off your smoke, the taller, of 
course, the better, but the principal thing is to have 
the chimney hot. After a bed of live coals is estab- 
lished, add wood as needed, not in big lots which 
will give off more smoke than the chimney can take 
care of, but a few sticks at a time. Even then the 
stove will sometimes start to smoke. The reason is 
that there is not enough heat going up the chimney, 

67 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

as your hand on it will tell you. Take off a lid, 
open all drafts, and fan or blow the wood to a flame. 
When well going, put back the lids and the pipe 
will draw well, for it now has a heated column of 
air again established. That is all there is to it. 

This article may well conclude with the making 
of an emergency cook kit. In no big game country 
should a man set out without a small package of 
emergency food in pocket or on belt, so that if left 
out over night he can build a fire, cook a wholesome 
meal, and make light of the experience. Something 
to cook in is the first consideration. I find that the 
square cans that chocolate and cocoa come in make 
the best emergency tins. It holds about a pint 
and is 3 inches by 2 inches by 4>^ inches high. 
There is nothing to fit over it manufactured that I 
know of. Just as it is, with two holes in the lip for 
a wire bale, it makes a good emergency kit with its 
cover. I give here a pattern that a friend of mine 
published for a tin container that would just fit 
over it, giving him two pails. But as we all carry 
an enamelware cup hung to our belt, the plain 
cocoa tin does well enough. A canvas cover should 
be sewed up for it, with belt straps and a flap. 
Inside goes the wire bale to hang it over a small 
campfire with, a package of tea, some lumps of 
domino sugar, small bags of rice and cornmeal, and 
a cube of powdered soup. Here also a few bars of 
emergency chocolate, in case you wish to push on 
without making any fire at all. Altogether this kit 
can carry twenty-four hours' rations and weighs a 
pound. 

68 



CHAPTER V 

Leather Working 

THE leather-working drawer of the sports- 
man's workshop should have the following 
tools in it: Hand sewing awl; a set of brass 
needles, with waxed thread attached, for outside 
seams; two common awls, straight and curved; a 
lump of beeswax; a hank of strong linen shoe twine; 
a keen knife with 45-degree edge for cutting leather 
strips; a keen paring knife; a sharp two-edged 
chisel, with A-inch face for making rawhide seams; 
buckle-hole punch; eyelet punch and eyelets; tubular 
rivets, with a blunt cone set punch to set them with; 
copper washer rivets; screw calk wrench and a box 
of calks; boot nails and a shoemaker's hammer. 

With these in the drawer one is fixed to repair 
moccasins, fix leather straps and buckles on camp 
gear, mend moccasins, and make all sorts of leather 
trail equipment from a ditty bag to an axe scabbard. 
A description of the most important tool, the 
hand sewing awl, may well come first. There are 
two makes, costing sixty and fifty cents, respectively, 
at the hardware stores. The principle of both is 
the same. One has the thread spool mounted in a 
metal case under the chuck and a set of needles in 
the handle, and the other has the spool in the 
handle and the needles in three pockets under the 
chuck cover. To sew an outside seam with it, the 

69 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

leather edges are matched and set in the vise on 
your bench. Begin by pulling out about a foot of 
thread from the spool and threading the end of 
it through the needle eye, leaving a tail of about 
an inch. Push the needle through the leather 
where you propose to begin your seam. Get hold 
of the thread end and draw all the slack through 
the hole. Then draw the needle back and punch 
the second hole of your seam. Pull it back about 
half an inch, when a loop will push out from the 
needle end. Shove the end of your slack through 
this loop, pull the needle out, grab slack and needle 
in your two hands, and pull tight. The result will 
be your first lock stitch. You can sew a seam a foot 
long in ten minutes when you get used to it. When 
the thread gets used up, add more by pulling back 
on handle, when a few inches more will come off 
the bobbin. Needless to say, the length of thread 
first pulled out should give slack enough to go the 
full length of the seam on the other side. 

The first job that will probably come to this 
awl will be a moccasin, with half inch or so of the 
uppers' seam ripped open, as so often happens after 
a week in the woods. To sew this, you use the bent- 
point needle and pick out the former awl holes, 
bending the moccasin so as to throw up the seam 
handy to get at. For a hole in the toe I find the 
best scheme is to rip enough of the upper seam to 
bend the foot "last" down, so you can get at the 
inner side of the patch seam. For holes in the heel 
one can get one's fingers down into the moc so as 
to manipulate the thread slack and feed it through 
the needle loops. These two holes are the ones that 
70 



LEATHER WORKING 

most often afHict moccasins. They are generally 
all that ails them, for the uppers and instep piece 
are almost always intact. No use throwing away 
a perfectly good moccasin for a mere hole in the 
sole! An Indian would not, and he has no sewing 
awl, either. The patch, of course, goes on outside, 
where it will not afflict your foot. No less than four 
pairs of good mocs have gone through my shop so 
patched — a considerable saving in these days of 
eight-dollar moccasins! 

A knife sheath and a revolver holster are two 
articles that the enthusiastic camper will often 
wish to make for himself. All hunting knives come 
with their sheaths, but the knives get lost and the 
sheath will rarely fit anything that can be bought 
in a hardware store. Yet these same hardware- 
store butcher knives are admittedly the best of 
camping knives, being of superb steel and very 
cheap. In making a sheath for one I prefer the 
overcast rawhide lacing stitch. This can be made in 
two ways: with a square of the leather showing 
between each turn of the white rawhide, or with 
the rawhide in close folds. To make the former the 
narrow, sharp chisel is brought into play to make 
slots, and the rawhide worked through as in the 
ordinary overcast sewing seam. For the latter the 
chiseled slots are put in at a slight diagonal, so as 
to nearly overlap each other. When the rawhide is 
pulled through it meets edge-to-edge, as it will be 
of >^-inch strip, which is a trifle wider than the 
slots cut in the leather. A paper pattern had better 
first be gotten out for the knife, and then opened 
out and laid on the leather before cutting out. 

71 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

The holster is made of stout saddle leather 
yi of an inch thick. A piece I2>^ inches by lo 
inches wide will be needed to take a .38 caliber 
officer's model Colt with 7-inch barrel. The pat- 
tern is cut out as shown, c)}4 inches from muzzle 
to top, with cut-out for trigger finger and hanging 
flap lip projecting up 3 inches. It is then folded 
over and the edges sewed with overcast rawhide 
seam. To hang from cartridge belt a loop of the 
same saddle leather 2>^ inches wide by 8 inches 
long is cut out of the left-over stock, bent double 
and secured with a flat copper rivet. This is the 
old-timer gunman rig; allows free movement of the 
holster when same is strapped to the leg, and is 
supplemented with a rawhide thong three feet 
long for securing to leg, rove through two buckle 
holes in the rear face of the muzzle. I prefer adding 
to this holster a thong to go over the gun hammer 
to tie it in when traveling, as I do not want the 
gun constantly on my mind when going through 
scraggs, where it is likely to be "frisked" by some 
passing branch. 

A scabbard for the camp axe is another bit of 
leather goods that the shop is likely to turn out. 
All belt axes come with their covers on, and only 
need a bit of seam sewing now and then, but the 
big axe is more often bought at the hardware store 
and taken along with its edge tied up in a wad of 
gunny sacking. This is sure to get lost in a week's 
camp, and the big axe has a fine time of it cutting 
things during the trek out to civilization. A scab- 
bard for it will be made of >^-inch saddle leather, 
cut out in one piece with flap, as per pattern. Its 

72 




FOLDING WIRE GRATE 






WIND-SHIELD GRATE 




PATTERN FOR AXE SHEATH 
73 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

edges are best fastened with copper rivets, spaced 
an inch apart, as one cannot depend on a seam to 
guard the edge. The axe will never go on a belt, 
yet two slits in the back of the scabbard will not 
come amiss, for, when lashed atop a horse pack, it 
helps a lot to feel that a rope is rove through those 
slits, so that the axe cannot get away, although it 
may come loose. 

A mighty useful trail accessory is the ditty bag, 
that little leather pouch that is carried either by a 
narrow strap over shoulder or is slipped on the belt 
by straps for the purpose. It is by no means the 
unwieldy converted shell bag sold by the outfitters 
under the name "ditty bag," which they have some- 
how confounded with the sailor's ditty-box or carry- 
all. No; the true ditty bag as first described by Ness- 
muk, the father of modern camping out, is a small 
pouch about six by eight inches, meant to hold all 
sorts of small useful things such as easily get lost if 
carried anywhere in the main pack. Most of these 
things are heavy. When you want 'em you want 'em 
bad, but a very small pouch will carry all that you 
should burden yourself with on even a three-weeks' 
trip into the mountains. Your rifle-cleaning set, your 
screw calk wrench, set of folding screwdrivers, oil 
dropper, cartridge extractor, supplementary cart- 
ridge holder, spare sinkers and fish hooks, screw 
calks, general utility pocket knife, emergency 
match safe, a small file, some nails and tacks, a 
candle stump, a salt box, a can opener, a brass shell 
case filled with assorted pills and a roll of surgical 
tape (all in packages, let's hope), a tube of gun 
grease, some wire, and some chain pot hooks for 
74 



LEATHER WORKING 

hanging things over the fire — these are heavy 
enough for an allowable list. 

A good many of my friends and readers who have 
made up ditty bags on the above dimensions add a 
bellows side and bottom. This increases the 
capacity considerably, but I prefer the simple 
pouch, with flap, sewed up on the sides, with a 
>^-inch strap going over shoulder, something that 
will lie flat against one's coat and not tempt the 
wearer to fill it with so much junk that it becomes 
a nuisance. Such things as emergency kits, artifi- 
cial bait lures, etc., belong elsewhere than in the 
ditty bag. In selecting the strap to carry it, be 
sure to get a good live piece, not one tanned by 
chemicals until the leather is doubtful. Then cut 
it in two and sew the cut ends to the bag, or slip 
them flat between the side seams and sew all to- 
gether with the hand awl. The buckle and hole 
end are then free to adjust, so as to raise the ditty 
bag well up on the left side, where it will be out of 
trouble, and the left-over hole end is then trimmed 
off. Once adjusted, it will not require it again. 

One of the best ways to carry a pack is to roll 
the whole thing — tent, blanket, and a core of small 
duffle — into a cylindrical pack about 30 inches long 
by 12 inches in diameter and carry it in a pack 
harness. The article sold by the outfitters for this 
purpose does not awaken much enthusiasm. Who- 
ever designed it must have intended it for a cart 
horse, for the straps are of the heaviest leather, 
long enough and strong enough to carry a steel 
safe with. When we reflect that the average sports- 
man is well content with a forty-pound pack, there 

75 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

seems little sense in designing a harness to carry 
four hundred pounds, which only an Indian can do. 
Hence we turn to the shop for relief. Something 
light and simple and strong enough for the purpose 
is all we wish. I do not like the usual yoke form of 
strap for this harness, as it requires a breast strap, 
so that the pack cannot be slipped out of quickly 
when down in a windfall or in some similar peck of 
trouble. Let us try the D-ring, with triangular 
canvas anchorage to the upper pack strap, as shown 
in the design herewith. This will call for a 2-inch 
D-ring, which can be bought from the harness 
shop. We will use i^-inch straps 42 inches long 
for upper and lower pack straps, and get the carry- 
ing straps out of good strong leather stock 2^2 inches 
wide by 18 inches long, tapering to 1% inches at 
their lower ends. One more store-bought i^-inch 
strap 54 inches long and an extra buckle for it will 
be needed. Of this get out the two carrying straps 
that join the upper and lower pack straps, spacing 
them side by side and eight inches apart. The 
second one will need the spare buckle put on, just 
below the lower pack strap, to match the other one, 
and the left-over lengths are sewed to the yoke 
straps with the hand awl and buckle holes punched 
in the blank piece. To assemble this rig, four copper 
rivets will be needed, put through at the junctions 
of carrying straps and pack straps which go around 
the pack. The D-ring yoke is made of doubled 
canvas 8 inches wide and 5 inches high, folded 
through the D-ring and sewed along the seams and 
to the upper pack strap between the two carrying 
strap rivets. The wide part of the carrying straps 

76 




WADING SANDAL AND ROD RESTS 




LEATHER PACK HARNESS 



77 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

which go over the big muscles of the neck are 
riveted through the D-ring with three tubular 
rivets each. This harness is light, carries well for a 
cylindrical pack, and is not very expensive to make. 
For a heavier load, such as single-tripping it 
over a carry with, say ninety pounds of duffle on 
board, you will do better with a tump line, for 
shoulder straps with this load are sure to compress 
the chest muscles so as to stop circulation in the 
arms. The forehead strap of this is a piece of 
strong, soft leather i8 inches long by 1^4. inches 
wide by ]4> inch thick, but soft tanned like elk 
hide. Some makers anchor to it two buckle straps 
6 inches long, sewed with three strong seams and 
provided with a rivet at the lower ends. These 
buckles allow one to adjust the length from neck 
to pack to carry it at the right height. I would 
prefer the anchor strap of i3<4-inch leather, seamed 
to the forehead strap and fining down to yi inch, 
where a buckle serves to add on a long six-foot 
length of shawlstrap ties of >^-inch stuff. Two 
pairs of the thin strap lengths on a side are enough 
joined by taking off the buckles, cutting a sHt 
lengthwise near the ends, and slipping one strap 
through the slit in the other, when they make a 
close knot which is as strong as the original strap. 
A little practice in making up the pack will tell 
within an inch or so of the right length to leave to 
bring the forehead strap right, when an adjustment 
of the ^-inch buckles on one or both straps gets 
the length where it will carry easiest. To make up 
a tump pack, the tent tarp is laid out flat and the 
tump line laid on it, with its straps about two feet 

78 



LEATHER WORKING 

apart. The edges of the tarp are then folded in 
over the straps, and the duffle piled on them, with 
the folded blanket or sleeping bag at the bottom, 
so as to He flat against back. The tarp is then folded 
up into a bundle and the ends of the tump lines 
pulled, shirring the ends of the tarp to close up 
tight around the duffle. Each strap is then tied 
and crossed over the pack like tying up a parcel, 
and the whole thing is cinched up tight and secured. 
The forehead strap with the i>^-inch part of the 
strap will remain in a loop outside the pack. Trying 
it over the forehead, any further adjustment is 
made by the buckles and ends of the >^-inch straps 
where they pass through the buckles. 

There are two articles of leather wear in which 
the fisherman will be mightily interested, and both 
of which are easy to make in the home shop. The 
first of these is the leather wading sandal, to strap 
on over your rubber-boot sole, and so prevent those 
impromptu sit-downs in midstream which are 
neither so funny nor so harmless as they look to the 
streamside observer. The sole of the wading sandal 
is S]/2 inches long by 4 inches wide, fining to 2^ 
inches at the instep. It is a tap only, having no 
heel. Choose good sole leather one-quarter inch 
thick to make it of. Fifteen hobnails are put in 
around the edge of the sole, with five more down the 
center. These are the square quarter-inch wrought- 
iron hobnails, and the steel points of them are upset 
over small ^-inch copper washers inside the sole. 

Over the toe of the sole goes the vamp, of soft, 
tough xV-inch leather. It is made in two pieces, 
laced down the center with rawhide thong. Each 

79 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

half is a spherical triangle, 4>^ inches across the 
base, 5 inches on the lacing edge, and 6 inches 
along the seam, which sews along the edge of the 
sole. The two halves are sewed to the sole by turn- 
ing in the edge all around and running the seam 
inside the sandal, which is permitted because the 
vamp is in two halves, so you can get inside it to 
run the seam with the hand sewing awl. When 
done, the leather will naturally curve over to form 
a wide leather vamp that will fit over the toe of a 
rubber boot. Four lacing holes are then punched 
in the edges and a short thong run through them, 
by which the vamp can be laced snugly over the 
toe of the boot. 

To secure the heel, two ^-inch straps are riveted 
to the two rear corners of the sole inside with copper 
washer rivets. The buckle strap is 5 inches long, 
the hole strap 1 1 inches. This pair is to strap over 
the instep of your boot. To these two straps are 
riveted a second pair, 2 inches up from the sole 
rivets, to go around behind the heel and prevent 
the sandal coming off backward. The buckle end 
of this pair is 4>^ inches long and the hole end 
9 inches. After securing the instep strap this latter 
pair is buckled around the heel, and the sandal is 
on to stay. 

The second article of leather work I have in 
mind for fishermen concerns more nearly the salt- 
water angler, and is the rod rest, without which 
one is "out of luck" when fighting a determined 
channel bass of some 30 pounds' weight. There are 
two forms of this rod rest: the pocket type, hung 
from the front of one's belt, and the sole-leather 
80 



LEATHER WORKING 

socket rest tied loosely around the waist with a 
strap of its own. The former is the easiest to make 
and lightest to carry in a pack. It is simply a 
yig-inch leather back, 4 inches wide by 6^ inches 
long, with a i^-inch strap 18 inches long sewed to 
it at the upper end with a 2>^-inch lap for the seam. 
The front of the pocket is 5 inches wide by 5 inches 
deep, cut away on its upper edge in a curve that 
comes down to 3 inches deep in the center. It is 
sewed to the back with a single seam, so as to bag 
out in front, due to its extra width, and has two 
tubular rivets put in at the upper corners to pre- 
vent the seam starting. A buckle hole is also 
punched in the bottom to let water run out if the 
fisherman gets a douse of surf spray. The long 
18-inch strap is doubled over backward and secured, 
in the manufactured article, by two snap buttons. 
These require a special tool to set them, and come 
in boxes of several gross, containing the various 
parts of the male and female ends, but as this is 
rather an expensive outfit to purchase, the home 
shop will be content with a button and a couple of 
slits for it, cut in the strap so it can be adjusted at 
the right height. A narrow leather collar is put 
around the strap, so as to slip up over it and hold 
it flat and secure to one's belt. To put this rod 
rest on, you slip the loop through your belt and 
tighten the collar up against the belt. Two large 
holes are punched in the back piece on each side of 
the strap end, and through these holes are rove a 
strip of rawhide lacing to tie the holder to one's 
leg. I seldom use this feature myself, as, once the 
rod butt is in the pocket, it stays there, and I prefer 
^ 81 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

the pocket free to move instead of being strapped 
fast to the leg. 

The socket type of rod rest has the advantage 
of not making such a drag on your belt, as its strap 
goes over the hips around your back, so it is far 
less fatiguing to wear. It is made of two pieces of 
sole leather 8 inches wide by 4 inches deep, of the 
shape shown in the drawing. A belt of ^-inch 
leather is seamed into the ends of this sole-leather 
back, the buckle end 10 inches long, the hole end 
30 inches. This is long enough to go on outside a 
canvas coat or mackinaw, such as the surf fisherman 
is often glad to wear on cold autumn nights. The 
socket for this rest is a collar of sole leather, 3 inches 
wide by 1)4. inches high, 2^ inches deep at the 
lower end and ^ inch deep at the upper end. To 
make it, the thin ^-inch ends of the collar are 
shaved down, so as to overlap about an inch, and 
then seamed together. The pattern for it is 10^ 
inches long. When set on the sole leather back 
piece its lower side sticks out on a bevel of about 
30 degrees. When trimmed and shaved to lie flat 
all around the collar, it is then sewed to the front 
face of the rod rest with a bevel seam. 

To assemble this rod rest, the two flat pieces 
and the collar are first cut out, the collar bent into 
an oblong ring and sewed with a seam around its 
shaved ends, and the collar then fitted to the front 
piece and sewed to it. The ends of the straps are 
next set in and the back piece put on, after which a 
seam is run all around the edges, including two 
extra V seams to give additional anchorage to the 
strap ends. 

82 




GUNMAN HOLSTER AND MOCCASIN SEWING AWL 




RAWHIDE STITCH KNIFE SHEATH 



83 



CHAPTER VI 

Decoy Making 

With a Footnote on a Duck Battery 

\S I look back over the various shops that I 
J~\^ have worked and sung and puttered and 
burnt pounds of good old tobacco in, the one 
I love best is my shop of boyhood days. I was a 
lonely critter; could play no known game (if there 
were nine boys in the field I played right field; if 
ten, I was put off the team), and most of my time 
out of school was spent in the woods, or on the 
waters, or in my shop. That shop had every known 
tool in it, and it had a jigsaw. I wish I had a jig- 
saw now! For if I had I would cut out my own 
decoys instead of sending the patterns to the mill 
to be shaped out on a band saw. My boyhood 
foot-power jigsaw could easily cut out snipe decoys, 
and, if provided with a husky saw for inch soft 
timber, could saw things out of that, too. For the 
best duck decoy is hollow, and the easiest way to 
make it is to saw out a set of flat sections with the 
centers cut out via jigsaw, and then screw them 
up, layer by layer, to make a hollow duck decoy. 
The back and bottom are solid boards, of white 
pine, white cedar, or spruce. The three center 
layers are all cut out inside, so that when screwed 

84 



DECOY MAKING 

up there is a cavity. The decoy will then weigh 
about 1)4 pounds, and will last forever. I give 
here a set of patterns for the sections, for which I 
am indebted to Mr. Aldo Leopold, of Forest and 
Stream^ who makes his decoys hollow. Anyone 
can enlarge the patterns on the stock planks and 
cut out either with a good key-hole saw or the shop 
jigsaw, or send to the mill and have them done on 
a band saw. They are assembled, beginning with 
No. 5, by four to six wood screws, countersunk, 
and made watertight with a wipe of white lead 
paste between the plates. The bottom board goes 
on last, and then a session with chisel, spokeshave, 
and rasp file is in order. Finish with sandpaper. 
The heads are gotten out of 2 inches by 4 inches 
pattern pine stock, the outline being cut out with 
either chisel and augur bit or key-hole saw. If a 
quantity of these are to be roughed out this is cer- 
tainly the job I would send to the mill! 

Walter Sawyer, of beloved memory, preferred 
cork for his decoys, both duck and snipe. His 
dimensions are: 14^ inches by 7,^ inches for black 
ducks and mallard, and 12^ inches by 6 inches 
for broadbill and redhead. He bought the rough 
commercial cork from the New York importing 
houses, just as it came from Spain overseas. It 
comes in slabs i>2 inches to lyi inches thick, 
uneven and irregular in surface. But an ordinary 
rasp horseshoe file will work it like cheese. Mark- 
ing the oval on a 2^-inch slab for black ducks, he 
would saw it out with a key-hole saw and file both 
faces to a smooth fit in no time with the rasp. 
Two slabs, doweled together with maple dowels, 

85 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

which you can buy very cheaply at any hardware 
store, gave him the rough body, which was then 
formed to shape with the rasp. The duck head was 
of white pine, of i^-inch stock, dressed. The 
outline was cut out first with the jigsaw or compass, 
and then whittled to a neat job. 

With both types, hollow wooden and cork, the 
first thing to do, after fastening on the heads with 
a dowel run down through the head to come out at 
the base of the breast, was to set the decoy afloat 
and put on a trial weight, to find where and how 
much she would need of ballast to trim her. Around 
the spot was then chiseled a shallow square, in 
which a couple of tacks were driven. Turning the 
decoy bottom up and level, molten lead was poured 
in. It sets quickly and does not burn the wood. 
The tack- or nailheads hold it securely in place. 
A stout screweye or staple or leather loop, in salt- 
water gunning, was then driven in below the breast 
for the anchor rope, and the decoy was ready for 
finishing. 

Dull-finish paint, with excess of turpentine and 
dryer, is what is needed. The plumage of the real 
duck does not shine, no matter what the angle of 
the sun, yet how often have we noticed a whole 
flock of decoys gleaming white as the rising sun 
strikes their smooth-finished bodies! The fraud is 
plain to Sir Mallard, who has far keener eyes than 
you or I, and can see that flash as well as he sees 
your dark hat in the blind if you are foolish enough 
to wear one. Shiny finish is, however, admissible 
in those parts of the duck plumage that are naturally 
of metallic sheen, such as the head and wing spec- 

86 






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DUCKING BATTERY DESIGN 




PATTERNS 

FOR 

HOLLOW 

DUCK 

DECOYS 



DUCK 

AND 

CROW 

STOOLS 




87 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

ulum of mallards, and the wing speculum of almost 
all species. 

In coloring up decoys the gunner will select 
the ducks that abound in his own section. Two 
sizes of decoys will answer for all species, the mallard 
and the scaup size, as will be noted from the follow- 
ing table, giving the normal sizes of various kinds 
in two groups: 

Mallard 23" Greater Scaup 18" 

Black Duck 22" Lesser Scaup 17" 

Baldpate 21" Redhead 18" 

Sprig 24" Teal 15" 

For coloration one can copy from any of the thou- 
sands of pictures of popular duck species that exist 
on calendars, magazine covers, etc. 

The head should be well cheeked, to full width 
of pine stock, and bill nicely finished and painted 
true to natural coloration. Mr. Leopold is very 
insistent upon altering the position of each head in 
his flock, a good idea, as contributing to the life- 
like appearance of the stool, for even a human being 
notices decoys and tells them from real ducks, 
principally because all the heads face fixedly straight 
ahead. You may recall that point yourself when 
you came to a decision whether a given flock of 
ducks were decoys or not. I would go him one 
better, and that is to arrange at least three or four 
of my decoys to upend so that the tail and part of 
the body only show above water. Who ever saw a 
real flock of ducks in which at least one or two 
were not feeding! To do this in practice, I drive, 
a small wire staple in the breasts of some of them 

88 



DECOY MAKING 

and bring along some lead weights that have been 
tested out at home as heavy enough to upend the 
decoy. These are hung on the ones selected. 

The question of eyes is well worth giving care- 
ful attention to. One paints the circular iris with 
a fine brush, but the pupil should be a glass-head 
tack of the right color. These may be had by a 
raid on the ten-cent store, where pins of various 
colored heads may be bought. Cutting the pins to 
tack length, you have the commodity you need. 

A final decoration that Walter used a good deal 
with his decoys was to tack on real wings. He saved 
those from many of the ducks shot, kiln-dried them 
in the oven to cure the meat, and then tacked them 
to his decoy bodies. Walter always swore by that 
scheme, and claimed that ducks stooled better to 
his winged decoys than to any others. 

The second large division of decoy making is of 
shore birds. My boyhood shop turned out quan- 
tities of the flat wooden decoys, sawed out of 
^-inch pine stock on the jigsaw. These, when 
painted up, carried easily and answered very well 
for the unsuspicious snipe of chat far-off period. 
Nowadays the larger shore birds have become wary 
and suspicious, and a full-bodied decoy is needed. 
The folding tin ones are fine, for those who can 
afford them, carry well in a pack on a beach hike, 
and have but one disadvantage, and that is that 
when the surf downs one he is gone beyond re- 
covery. The wooden and cork decoys float, and 
are either cast up on the next comber or can be re- 
trieved by going in after them. As most snipe 
shooting begins in the early dusk before dawn and 

89 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

by aid of a duck boat, a couple of dozen solid snipe 
decoys, either wooden or cork, will generally be 
found piled in the stern rack. 

Standard snipe dimensions are io>^ inches 
from crown of head to tip of tail, by 3>^ inches 
deep, measured from full of breast to back. This 
is for black-bellied plover. Lesser yellow-legs, loj^ 
inches by 3^2 inches; greater, 11^ inches by 3^^ 
inches; robin snipe and dowitchers, 9 inches by 3 
inches; surf snipe, 8 inches by lyi inches. These 
measurements do not include bills. For willet and 
greater yellow-legs the bill should be whittled of 
locust or pinoak, with a neat taper flaring properly 
at the head. For the plover a large nail or telegraph 
wire driven through from the back of the head 
imitates well enough the thin, bluff bill of this 
species. Leg sticks 24 inches and 30 inches long 
should be provided for these decoys, as the short 
1 2-inch leg made by the tin-decoy manufacturers 
is only useful in the little surf snipe, now all protected 
by the federal migratory bird laws. As seen from 
a distance the most noticeable feature of a real 
flock of feeding shore birds is their height. They look 
like cranes looming up on the strand. A thirty-inch 
leg is none too long, after shoving down to get a 
good anchorage in the mud. 

Snipe decoys may be sawed from profile out of 
2-inch pine stock, or rasped out of cork slabs, of 
which the left-over pieces from duck decoy making 
will provide plenty of stock. Our sketches give 
the markings of five of the most used species of 
snipe decoys. They should be dull finish painted, 
with black pin-head eyes. 
90 



DECOY MAKING 

The principal art in snipe shooting is to learn 
the whistles of the different kinds, and how to dis- 
tinguish them at sight when flying in a flock far 
over the green marsh horizons. The usual tendency 
to whistle the yellow-leg call for any and all snipe 
seen is stupid to a degree. If the flock happens to 
be black-bellies or curlew they will have little in- 
clination to respond to a tattler call. As the human 
whistle has but a short range, you will find that most 
of the baymen have a bone whistle that they swear 
by, generally home-made. It has the wild twang 
that is absent from the human whistle, and, once 
having made a bone one, with the proper pitch 
and tone quality, your bayman would not part with 
it for several farms! A thin leg bone, about 3 inches 
long by yi inch in diameter is good stock to 
work on. Cut a lip and mouthpiece in one end, 
and whittle for it a wooden whistle plug. Blowing 
on it, you get the lowest note of the call, shorten- 
ing the other end with the hacksaw until just right. 
The second note is got by boring an eighth-inch 
hole about ^ inch from the end. A second one 
goes in >^ inch further up the shank from that, 
and you have the hu-hu-hu! of the yellow-leg. 
There is still room for a third hole, about an inch 
below the lip, which will give the high note of the 
two-note call of the black-bellied plover. Closing 
all but that one, you open the second hole down, 
and get the wee-you! of the black-belly. A trial 
whistle will give some idea of just where the holes 
should go to give the exact pitch. The shape of 
the bone, well scraped out inside, gives the snipy 
timbre so much desired. 

91 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

And, while making decoys, do not overlook a 
crow stool, 14 inches by 4 inches, whittled out of 
two slabs of 2-inch stock and doweled together. 
The crow is a large bird and wary; anything under- 
sized will keep him at a safe distance. During the 
closed season, with a .22 rifle and a hide near said 
decoy, stood out in a field, one can have plenty of 
sport and do the farmer a service while getting 
good practice the while. 

I promised a footnote to this chapter on building 
a battery box. There is no published drawing of 
this that one can work to, except a plan view that 
has become incorporated in a handbook compiled 
by the writer some time ago. The central feature of 
this battery is a sink box, 40 inches by 26 inches by 
36 inches deep, set crosswise in the raft so that two 
gunners can squat in it side by side. It is built of 
heavy i3^-inch pine stock, dressed, and is caulked 
in the seams and painted outside. The battery is 
26 feet 6 inches long by 11 feet 4 inches wide. A 
stout platform 8 feet by 8 feet is first built around 
the sink box on 2 inches by 6 inches beams, bolted 
to the 40-inch edges of the box. This platform 
is then laid down in ^-inch tongue-and-groove 
stock. A forward frame 12 feet long by 11 feet 4 
inches wide is then gotten out of light 4-inch by 
i^-inch stock and decked over with 2-inch strips, 
canvas covered. This is not to be walked on, but 
serves to steady the raft from tipping and keeps 
the waves off. It is hinged to the raft in the bay- 
man's outfit, or it may be carried separately and 
bolted to it when the battery is assembled. Astern 
of the raft goes a similar float, 6 hcc long by 11 

92 





THREE-LEAF 
RIFLE SIGHT 



LEATHER DITTY-BAG 



93 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

feet 4 inches wide, made the same way, bolted or 
hinged to the rear edge of the raft. Two narrow 
strips of the same material are let in, 8 feet long by 
20 inches wide, to fill out the sides between the front 
and rear floats, and the battery is assembled. The 
whole raft lies flush with the water, the movable 
end and side floats taking the swell of the waves 
and preventing a wash coming inboard. Around 
the lips of the box are lead flanges which can be 
turned up four inches to prevent a thin wash, 
sweeping over the battery surface, from lapping 
into the sink box. Let into the plank floor of the 
raft are two long boxes, a foot wide by six feet long, 
in which are put the iron weights that sink the box 
down to water level after the men have gotten in 
and one can tell how much more weight is necessary. 
About two hundred pounds will be needed. 



94 



CHAPTER VII 

The Gun Shop 

UPON the gun bench of the sportsman's work- 
shop falls the upkeep and repairs of his 
arsenal, and, if he is one of those delightful 
souls who love to putter, the reloading of his shot- 
gun and rifle cartridges. The old-timer can read 
the character of any sportsman by a single glance 
at his gun cabinet, a single inquiring look through 
the barrels of his iron-mongery. It is a fact never 
sufficiently taken to heart that a very little rust 
and corrosion does more to ruin the shooting 
qualities of a good barrel than a thousand shots 
fired from it. Look through your friend's gun- 
barrels — or, let us say, your own — if they show 
rust and worse, he, she, or you may be convicted 
at once of laziness, carelessness, and that happy- 
go-lucky spirit that hopes for the best and charges 
all failures up to "luck." But if the guns are spot- 
less inside and out, and a nice coating of good gun 
oil shines in the bore, you can lay to it that that 
owner is a good man to camp with, careful, thought- 
ful of the well-being of the faithful shooting irons 
that will mean so much to him when the big mo- 
ment of the next trip comes, and possessed of a 
quiet pride in the efficiency of the tools he works 
with that stamps the real woodsman. 

9S 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

And so your gun drawer will be well equipped 
with shotgun- and rifle-cleaning implements, am- 
monia solution for removing metal fouling, rust 
removers, nitro solvents, and gun oils. In addition, 
we will look for the right files and screwdrivers, 
crocus cloth, lead plates to put in the vise jaws, so 
as to hold guns without marring the metal finish, 
and a few small clamps to compress lock springs. 
Also a brass mallet and a couple of hardwood 
billies for driving out this and that, and at least 
one long-nosed, hard steel punch for starting pins. 

The shotgun arsenal will not require much at- 
tention if well cleaned and oiled after each day 
afield. Occasionally the safety in some makes gets 
gummed fast by salt wrack getting into the locks; 
but aside from this it is seldom that Sir Shotgun 
requires anything but cleaning. It is rather differ- 
ent with the rifle. As it comes from the factory, it 
is every man's weapon, with no carrying strap, no 
checking on fore end or tang, and the cheapest set 
of sights that can be described as reasonably efli- 
cient. Now a rifle is such an intimate part of the 
hunter as to require a good deal of adaptation to 
the particular eye and arm and trigger finger of its 
owner. The sights will do fairly well "as is," but 
much finer shooting can be had by changing them 
to ones more adapted to your own tastes and eye- 
sight. You owe it to yourself to equip your rifle 
with the front, rear, and tang peep sight that you 
have found you shoot best with. The rear leaf 
sight should have facilities for instantly changing 
the range, with loo yards as its zero, while the rear 
tang peep is to be set and left at loo yards. For 
96 



THE GUN SHOP 

general shooting at this range the tang peep is the 
most satisfactory, because of its clear vision of the 
game and the front sight; but in dim lights or un- 
certain ranges you will want the rear sight only, so 
that you can cut off as much or little of the front 
sight as judgment tells is right, or can throw up 
the two hundred or three hundred yard bar at will. 
It goes without saying that the rear sight should 
lie flat on the barrel if the peep is being used. 
Nothing is more confusing than three sights, the rear 
one cutting off, as usual, part of the front. 

My own personal preferences are for a plain 
steel front sight, silvered over the rib. This is 
strong and reliable. Too often have I gone into 
the woods with companions who found their ex- 
pensive ivory bead front sights knocked off before 
even the rifle had left its case, and we had to ham- 
mer a new blade out of a lead sinker, fit it to the 
rifle, and sight her in the camp. No; the good old 
all-steel front sight suits^ and the way to make it 
equal any bead is to just file a little forty-five- 
degree flat on its upper rear face. This makes a 
little looking glass, say a sixteenth inch high by the 
width of the knife, a tiny white mirror that will 
reflect the sky. light back into your eye earlier in 
the morning and later in the evening than any bead, 
and it will not "shoot off the light" as the bead 
does; that is, show a bright point on the side of 
the bead where the sun reflection comes, thus mak- 
ing the shooter take that side as the center of his 
bead. Never yet have I had trouble with this 
front sight. It sticks up like a white bar over the 
rear sight, visible in all lights, and all white in the 

97 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

sun glare. I have had mihtary leaf sights get loose 
on their pins, making me shoot "all over the lot;" 
have had ivory beads crumble on an unsympathetic 
granite boulder, and gold beads turn up missing, 
with no explanations except that I must have 
knocked it off somewhere during the day's climb; 
but never yet has the old steel front failed to be 
there. In fact, for the last ten years I have never 
given it a thought! 

The rear sight should fold flat on the barrel. 
Mine has two leafs, a deep-notch wide V, which I 
seldom use except for very fine still sights; and a 
flat bar with ivory triangle, point up, showing the 
center of the bar. This I use for all woods shooting 
when it is too dim for the peep to define well. I 
would prefer a three-leaf sight, three bars with the 
same triangle in each, giving me one, two, and 
three hundred yards with a push of the thumb. 
Before going on a Rocky Mountain hunt for goat 
and sheep I certainly would buy one and put it on. 
The present sight, set for lOO yards, will do for 
Eastern shooting. 

To put in a new sight is the simplest thing in 
the world. The dovetail on the barrel draws from 
right to left. Knock out the old sight with mallet 
and a short piece of brass rodding. Put in the new 
sight until it begins to draw hard. Then bore-sight 
the rifle; that is, set it up firmly bearing on a distant 
mark, which you can see looking through the bore, 
and then drive the rear sight in until it and the 
front also line up on the mark. As this cannot be 
done with a lever action rifle, the procedure in that 
case will be to scratch a center line on the barrel 



THE GUN SHOP 

dovetail from the old sight center, and drive in the 
new until it coincides. It is then roughly sighted; 
but to get it right for the rifle's zero take out a 
target and shoot groups on it, moving the rear 
sight until they center around the bull's-eye. 

Suppose, however, they shoot high? someone 
asks. That will mean that you must watch to see 
just how much of the front to cut off with the bar 
to shoot true center. Remember how much it 
was and carry it always in your mind's eye, for it is 
the rifle's range zero at one hundred yards. Of 
course if you are sighting in at a fifty-yard target 
the groups will come high anyhow, and the published 
mid-range trajectory of your cartridge will tell you 
how much high to expect the groups. If the rifle 
shoots low, with a coarse sight showing, file off some 
of the knife until you get a fair amount over the 
bar for a hundred yards. 

The next sight improvement for the shop to 
make is to put on a peep. For a light rifle a re- 
ceiver peep is all right, for one can bend the head 
forward to get one's eye close to it; but for heavy 
rifles of big recoil I prefer the tang peep, as the 
receiver peep is almost useless in dim light. For a 
rifle like the .32-20 the receiver peep is very handy, 
however. It comes with its pivot screw attached, 
and the hole for it is already bored and tapped in 
the receiver frame. Back out the dummy screw 
in that hole and put in the receiver peep frame. It 
has a cam lever on it, by which the peep can be 
instantly raised to 200 and 300 yards and fractions 
thereof. If you want to use your rear open sight, 
the cam can be loosened and the whole receiver frame 

99 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

raised so you can see under it. The old buckhorn 
notched sight should be taken off and a folding leaf 
sight put on, for the buckhorn is very much in the 
way; in fact, a hindrance if using the peep. 

In selecting a tang peep for your big-game rifle 
the first thing to be considered is the recoil. The 
receiver frame will kick back about 2^ inches 
with good hard holding, so that about 3 inches 
from the eye is the limit distance to set the tang 
peep back toward your eye. The tang peep sold 
for the Model '95 Winchester sets it so far back 
as to land right into the eye in prone firing, and to 
bark the eye socket painfully with off-hand and 
kneeling positions. It was evidently designed to 
clear the bolt, with no thought whatever of the 
shooter's optic. However, the remedy is a Model 
'94 sight, which sets nearly % inch further forward 
on the tang. It should be spring- folding, so as to 
fall back when the bolt rides over it, and then re- 
turn to shooting position when the action is closed. 
This sight is the one I put on my .35 Winchester, 
and has given entire satisfaction. It comes mounted 
on a flat steel bar, with screws and holes to fit one's 
already bored and tapped in the upper tongue of the 
receiver frame. There is a setting wedge, by which 
it can be held fast when laid back on the tang and 
not wanted, and the shank of the peep is graduated 
in fifty-yard marks, with a knurled sleeve to raise 
or lower it quickly, and a knurled outer sleeve to 
lock the other one fast. After putting it on, it 
needs throwing to right or left to bring the peep in 
exact center, and this is best done by loosening the 
tang screws and inserting a thin strip of visiting 
100 



THE GUN SHOP 

card under one edge, until the peep shoots zero 
with the rear sight, when the screws are tightened 
up on the cardboard as tight as they will go. 

The next thing your rifle will need is checking 
the fore end and tang grip. It is impossible to get a 
good sight with sweaty fingers on smooth oiled 
walnut, and in big-game hunting you often are 
forced to shoot in just that condition, breathless 
from a furious run or climb, and sweating like a 
bull. Checking a good grip is not so hard as it 
looks, and is more than worth your time. The 
nicest way is to buy a checking tool from any of the 
big gun stores. This tool parallels its own lines 
which is always the great trouble with home-shop 
checking jobs. The first one I tried I worked out 
with a pencil design, scribing with a sharp tool, 
deepening the scores by working over them again 
and again, and finally finishing with a knife-edge 
file. It made a good grip, but not very pretty to 
look at, because the lines would not come exactly 
parallel by reason of the drag of the grain of the 
wood on the tool. The regular checking tool cuts 
one line while scoring the next. It costs perhaps 
seventy-five cents at present prices, but it is the 
thing to use. For a fore-end design I prefer a long 
diamond over the lower center, with a half diamond 
meeting it on each side, the long upper line of the 
half diamond running }4, inch below the upper edge 
of the fore end. The tang design should be a long 
sweep, beginning just below the tang peep base, 
and running back in a slant to a center under the 
stock, 2>^ inches back of the lever end. Run the 
bottom outline K inch around the lower frame 

lOI 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

tongue and the same around the top tongue, carry- 
ing it down % inch back of the receiver frame butt. 
This outline is filled in with checking, and makes 
a good right-hand grip. Checking is not all orna- 
ment, let me tell you! It has its very definite use 
in the art of shooting. 

The next shop job on the rifle will be putting on 
the strap. For all western shooting, where there is 
plentiful mountain cHmbing, and both hands and 
both feet may be needed for it, a strap is a necessity, 
and I, for one, want a strap in the East, too. Some 
use the military strap, which is long enough to 
wind around the arm and aid in steady holding. 
Out of the question, of course, in big game shoot- 
ing, being too slow; but my own strap does all that 
instantly, and is also the right length for carrying 
over shoulder or on the back when climbing. This 
length is so adjusted that when the rifle is at shoul- 
der and the crook of the left elbow is slipped inside 
the strap a powerful triangle of forces is at once 
set up which steadies the rifie like a rock against 
right shoulder and left hand fore-end grip. And 
this is instantaneous, too, done in the act of raising 
the rifle to aim. The right strap length (for me) to 
do this is 2 feet 4 inches; one alters this length for 
one's personal measurements until the rifle comes 
up and locks fast in your holding just right. To put 
on the strap you need two flat bronze strap rings, 
which can be bought from any big gun store, the 
stock ring hinged and put on 3^ inches from the 
heel, and the fore-end ring swiveled and put on with 
a plate inside the fore-end, 1 inches back of its 
knob. The strap itself is of soft >^-inch leather, 
102 




BULLET MOULD 




FOLDING 
LEAF 
SIGHT 




THE 

CLEANING 

BRUSH 

FOR THE 

TRIP 



RIFLE SCREWDRIVERS 



RIFLE 
CHECKING 
^" AND 

STRAP 




FLEXIBLE PEEP 



103 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

lyi inches wide, fining down to yi inch, where it 
passes through the rings. The strap is 3 feet long 
altogether, and is adjusted by two bronze buttons, 
very like the ordinary collar buttons, which pass 
through slits in the leather, securing the two ends 
of the strap doubled under the button. This is a 
very much better arrangement than a buckle with 
buckle holes, which would always be catching in 
scraggs and digging one's hands with its tongue. 
The fore-end ring should be swiveled, so as to let 
the strap lead out flat across the shoulder at all 
angles of twist. This pair of buckles cost $1.00, if 
I remember correctly, but were well worth it. They 
have been on the rifle six years now, and never have 
given the least trouble. 

As I said before, it cannot be too much em- 
phasized that the most important thing about a 
rifle is to keep it clean. Modern smokeless powders 
are extremely corrosive, and form a wash or plating 
of copper and acid salts that will ruin the barrel if 
left there. Gun grease and rust remover will not 
take it out. The only thing to use is strong am- 
monia. If you think your rifle is clean, after swab- 
bing and scraping with the brass brush until a rag 
comes out clean, just run in one soaked in ammonia 
and watch the black residue pour out! Colonel 
Whelen's recipe is the best, and is given here: 
6 ounces stronger ammonia, 4 ounces water, i ounce 
ammonium persulphate, 200 grains ammonium car- 
bonate. Powder the carbonate and persulphate, 
and add the water and stronger ammonia, stirring 
until the salts are dissolved. Keep in a bottle with 
glass or rubber stopper. It should be made up 
104 



THE GUN SHOP 

fresh MS wanted and not kept over two weeks. To 
use this in a lever action rifle you would first get a 
rubber cork to fit snugly into the chamber, so as to 
keep the ammonia out of the action. Fill barrel 
with solution from the muzzle, let stand half an 
hour, pour out, and finish cleaning with flannel 
patches moistened with stronger ammonia (28% 
gas), shoved through on a cleaning rod. Thor- 
oughly dry by running through clean patches, and 
then oil with a rag soaked in some good gun oil. 
To restore a rusted barrel the same solution is used, 
alternating with scrubbing by the brass scratch 
brush. The bore is then scrubbed with the rust 
remover grease sold at the gun stores, and this is 
finally cleaned out and the bore oiled. It should 
show clean and clear. 

The test of all cleaning is shooting the weapon 
again. If you have neglected it, or your cleaning 
is of the lick-and-a-promise order, it will show up 
in the rifle's groups. Some rifle steels, notably 
Winchester, stand a great deal of abuse and still 
shoot well, in the writer's experience. Smokeless 
powders are particularly hard on the .22 cat rifle 
tribe. If not cleaned after shooting, the "wild'* 
groups that will be made are simply unbelievable. 
I have seen a dirty .22 that could not hit a blue 
rock pigeon at fifteen yards! 

As for cleaning rods, I have three for the rifles: 
a plain hickory rod for the .35, a jointed brass rod 
for the .22's and the .32-20, and a brass scrubber 
with rope ends and a brass barrel weight to feed 
down from the muzzle for camp. This one goes in 
the ditty bag on the trail, together with a folding 
105 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

triple-blade screwdriver, a broken-shell extractor, 
and a steel supplementary cartridge that takes the 
.380 auto Colt pistol cartridge in the .^^ for small 
game. 

While it is true that the present price of shotgun 
shells has dropped to ^1.25 a box, some of us like 
to load our own, at that. To do this with any sort 
of satisfaction requires, first, that you "get organ- 
ized." As to economy, loaded shells now cost 
five cents "per each," as dear old Unkel David would 
say, whereas if you load them yourself they cost 
2^ cents. This is figured on powder at 85 cents 
a pound, which will load 85 shells at 3 drams each 
(256 drams to the pound), and chilled shot at 15 
cents a pound. Wads are now about $2 a thousand, 
and primers 35 cents a box of 100. Time was when 
primers were a simple matter, but now they are 
very complex. You used to drive out the primer 
and set in a Winchester 2}4 and there was an end! 
Now each shell has a different kind, some the old 
anvil type, others like little .22 cartridges necked 
down. However, the first thing to do after coming 
in from the hunt is to decap all your empties, partly 
to prevent corrosion of the flame hole and sticking 
of the primer, and partly to get a sample of the 
primer, so as to match him in buying a new box of 
them. 

I do not know what brass shells cost now. 
Papers come about two cents each, new; brass will 
no doubt have gone to five cents. I still have a big 
stock of them, 12-gauge, 2^-inch. There is hardly 
a gun chamber that they will not fit, as the standard 
shell length is 2}i inches when uncrimped. These 
106 



THE GUN SHOP 

brassies are the goods for steady reloading; their 
only objection is a tendency to diminish in numbers, 
due to bending them out of round when on the 
hurly-burly of a grouse hunt where rocks are plen- 
tiful and cheap. With them I have a shell board 
holding fifty. It consists of two walnut boards, 
12 inches by 6 inches, hinged together at the back 
and provided with two hooks in front. The upper 
board is one inch thick, and has fifty shell holes 
11-16 inch in diameter bored in it, five rows of ten 
shells each, lyi inches between centers in the ten 
row and It^ inches in the five row. The lower 
board has shallow recesses bored in it, 15-16 inch 
in diameter, to receive the shell heads, and the 
centers of these are countersunk to make a shallow 
well into which the knocked-out primers are to be 
dropped. 

All right; the board is first filled with fifty 
empties, folded and hooked together. The de- 
capping punch goes over the lot, driving out all 
the old primers. Board is unhooked and upper 
board turned over, when all the shells are recapped, 
not with the tongs type, which would require 
taking them all out, but with that recapper which 
slides over the sRell head like a shell extractor, and 
indeed may be used as such. Board is again folded 
together, when all fifty shells stand with their 
mouths up to be powdered. The wads come next, 
put in with a short funnel which fits over the shell 
down to the wood; and then comes the shot and its 
card wad. 

The holes for the shells should fit them closely, 
as in paper shells you have nothing but the wood 

107 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

from preventing the shells fattening out if rammed 
too hard. Brass shells require their own wads, as 
the standard gauge paper shell wads are too small 
to fit them. 

This board is equally quick and good for paper 
shells, the only other operation being to open the 
soft mouth of each shell with a little wood cone. 
When this is done the funnel will not be required, 
if you go light on the ramming. 

Really, it is in rifle shell reloading that the 
greatest economy comes in these days of ten-cent 
cartridges. A pound of powder will load i^Z thirty- 
grain cartridges. As the average big-game load is 
from 25 to 35 grains, and the price of nitro rifle 
powders around ^1.35 a can, it brings the powder 
expense down to about half a cent. There are 
7,000 grains in a pound weight, so that out of a 
pound of lead in the dipper you can get about 28 
250-grain bullets, making the cost of them come 
one-third cent each at ten-cent lead. The rest is 
primer and gas check cup expense, so that it will 
cost about a cent each to reload such a cartridge 
as the .30-30 or the .30 U. S., with a trifle more for 
the .'^^^ Winchester. The Ideal No. 10 tool will 
handle most of the modern big-game cartridges. 
With it you should buy a dipper and melting pot, 
with castiron rim to let it set in the ordinary kitchen 
stove hole, which seems to have just about the 
right heat for making good bullets. You need the 
ladle or dipper because of its nozzle, which goes 
flat on the mould vent and gives you a pressure 
pour, which cannot be had out of an improvised 
kitchen spoon. This dipper should be kept in the 
108 







SHELL RELOADING BOARD 




RIFLE RELOADING TOOLS AND SHELL CRIMPER 
109 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

lead bath when not pouring, to keep its temperature 
the same as the lead. The mould must be almost 
as hot as the lead to get good bullets. A sure test 
is that the bullet should take several seconds to 
harden after being poured. When your mould is 
heated to the right point, keep the bullets coming 
in a batch, so as to pour a new one soon enough 
after each cooling to keep the temperature of the 
mould up. Occasionally it needs a touch of tallow 
or beeswax to keep the bullets from sticking to the 
mould. Knock them loose with a blow from a 
billy on the body of the mould, and keep the mould 
hinge oiled. 

I never had much trouble, after the first few, in 
making a nice run of bullets. The rest of the re- 
loading process is quick and simple. Your used 
shells should be cleaned as soon as possible after 
firing by dropping them in a bottle with soapsuds 
and weak ammonia, rinsing out the powder residue 
and drying in a mild heat — of course decapping, so 
as to get rid of the old primer with its corrosive 
pocket. It is the scale residue left in a dirty shell 
that makes all the trouble in reloading, for it dis- 
places at least five grains of room meant for the 
powder. When you try to seat the bullet, it is no 
go. Apparently some powder has to be tipped out, 
and it will have to, too, if the bullet is to seat home, 
with consequent loss of velocity when you come to 
fire the cartridge. Wherefore be not lazy, but clean 
your shells if you expect to reload them! 

On the reloading tool you will find a bullet 
sizing die, a capper and decapper, and a finishing 
die for forming the loaded shell so it will fit the 
no 



THE GUN SHOP 

chamber nicely. Also a dingus for opening the 
shell necks, which may be needed if your bullets 
are not going in the neck properly, but most shells 
come out of the rifle slightly expanded in the neck 
from the explosion. 

On the base of your bullet goes the copper gas 
check cup. It is a little, inexpensive thing, but if 
you have any regard for your rifling do not omit 
it. In our great gun firing in the navy the erosion 
due to each shot is all figured out in tables, so we 
know from the life of the gun just how much yard- 
age short to allow for the erosion that has already 
taken place. Well, in rifle shooting this erosion is 
just as important, and it is best kept down by a 
gas check cup. A pure lead base will melt and 
fray around the edges, due to the white-hot gases 
behind it. This cup is to protect the base. 

My own experience with reloading rifle shells 
has been a pleasurable sort of puttering, by no 
means the mystery or mess of hard feelings that 
sportsmen seem to think it will be. If you want to 
become a good shot, practice is the only thing that 
will do it, and your own reloading will give you 
that, cheap. It is a perfectly legitimate and com- 
mendable activitv of the Sportsman's Workshop, 
I'll say! 



Ill 



CHAPTER VIII 

Rod Repairing and Lure Making 

THE tackle department of the sportsman's 
workshop will have two main concerns: the 
repair of rods and reels, and the making of 
tackles and lures. All of us who do much fishing 
need not be reminded of the number of lures we 
lost on each long trip of the season. Our floating 
bass baits got snagged beyond recovery, or cast off 
into the forest by some backlash, never to be found, 
and our spoon lures one by one came to grief, 
hooked in rock crevices, into lily pad stems and 
brush snags. At present prices of any and all lures, 
enough of them to last out a week's trip will cost 
more than the trip, so that we, perforce, take to 
making our own in the shop — which is good fun 
and not half so hard as it sounds. 

As to rods and reels, they will come through the 
season with frayed wrappings, war-worn varnish, 
broken joints, and lost tops; and the reels, especially 
the salt-water division, get gummed up with green 
rust, while the fresh-water ones are apt to come 
home with the rubber cheek plates nicked or broken, 
the handles bent or loose, and the quadruple mul- 
tiplying ones slow from dirt or even bent out of 
true, which often happens to the kind made of a 
shell of metal punched out to form the frame. 

112 



ROD REPAIRING AND LURE MAKING 

So along about February we get out the fishing 
togs and see what ails each and every one of them,. 
Here is a boat rod that was put away last season 
with its butt and second joint gummed together 
so that two strong men and a horse couldn't get it 
apart again. Of course it seized the occasion to 
spring itself out of straight. The butt joint is all 
right, but the second — a dog's tail is straighter! 
First, to get it apart. Don't put it in a vise and 
proceed to ruin it by twisting the ferrule with a 
pipe wrench. Just run a turn of kerosene around 
the rim of the ferrule and let it stand a day or so 
to think it over, adding a drop of kerosene again 
whenever you notice it needs it. My word for it, 
in two days at most that joint will come apart 
with the first strong endwise pull. To straighten 
the bent section, lay it on a board and drive in two 
nails near the ends. Bend straight — and a bittock 
more — by hand, and secure with a third nail. When 
you take it off a week later it will be straight or 
near enough so to complete the process by hanging 
up with a heavy weight attached to the bottom. 

Overhauling the fly rod, one tip has lost its top, 
and all the joints have frayed sections here and 
there. Your tackle repair drawer will have the silk 
rod-winding spools of the colors you use. Get out 
the right spool and one of your old safety razor 
blades treasured up for rod work, and cut off the 
frayed wrapping entire with a slit down its length. 
Now to wind on the new one. The simplest rod 
lathe that I know of is two glass ice-water pitchers, 
set up on the bench with the rod joint passing 
through the handles of the pitchers. With this 
« 113 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

scneme the rod is turned with the right hand, its 
fingernails snugging the turns so that they lie flat 
side by side with no bunching and no open cracks, 
while the left hand feeds the thread off the spool 
at a tension. Such a wrapping is begun by winding 
over the end of the thread laid flat on the rod, and 
completed by making out a loop and winding over 
the loop for three or four turns, when the thread 
end is pushed through the loop and pulled taut, 
thus making an invisible knot. After these wrap- 
pings are on they will all need three or four coats 
of color fixer, which is collodion and banana oil in 
equal parts, bought from your druggist's. Without 
it the silk will surely turn dark and muddy when 
the varnish comes on. If the varnish already on 
the rod is in good shape, all the new wrappings will 
need is a single coat of new varnish, followed by 
another on the whole joint. We use spar or Val- 
spar varnish, thinned out with a little alcohol. 
Your main concern will be to do the varnishing in 
some room where there is, and will be, no floating 
dust, and not to put on a new coat until the other 
is thoroughly dry; that is, so dry that no thumb- 
mark will show when you press on it. If you put 
it on too soon the new coat melts the under one and 
the whole business gums up. The brush to do it 
with must be the finest you can buy, a sable brush 
that will not leave hairs and streaks. 

Often a whole new rod- wrapping job comes up; 
in our shop many of them, for "B. M." is a pro- 
fessional at it, making all his own rods, repairing 
mine, and making up new ones from a score of old 
butts and tips and joints that abound in the dark 
114 



ROD REPAIRING AND LURE MAKING 

recesses of the store closet. I had a green-heart 
surf rod that was stiff and logy and exceedingly 
difficult to cast without getting a backlash, as it 
had no life and whip. B. M., who had just finished 
a beautiful surf rod of his own, looked mine over 
and declared that it needed rebuilding from the 
ground up. It had a wrapping every inch, which 
not only made it look heavy and clumsy to a de- 
gree, but so bound the wood fibers as to take all 
the resiliency out of the rod. With a razor blade 
all these came off in a jiffy, also both upper guides 
and the top. The rod was then scraped down with 
an old blade, following with a rubbing of steel wool 
until we had the original grain. Testing its bend, 
B. M. decided on a removal of enough wood, from 
the ferrule down to about half the length of the tip, 
to give that long bend that is needed for a good 
surf rod, not the tight bend up near the top that 
you will find on poorly designed rods. A good test 
of a surf-rod tip is to hold it out with the left hand 
and strike it a smart blow with the palm of your 
right hand about one-third its length from the butt. 
It should vibrate smartly over its whole length for 
at least a second. 

A single pair of agates was then put on, twenty 
inches from the top. To make a handsome job of 
this, he put on two green wrappings, with black 
edgings and yellow center line and yellow ends, 
followed by three narrow yellow rings about half 
an inch apart at each end, and over this was put 
the guides opposite the yellow centerline, and 
wrapped on with black silk, winding always toward 
the agate. This color scheme was repeated below 

115 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

the top and above the ferrule, and once again about 
midway between the ferrule and the guides. That 
was all the wrapping that went on the rod. Four 
coats of collodion and banana oil went on these, and 
then the varnish, taking several weeks to get on 
four coats of it, and rubbing down with steel wool 
after each coat to smooth down pimples and brush 
roughness in the surface. A reversible agate top 
completed the rod. 

Before the war a good greenheart rod cost 
about $25. B. M. made his own at a cost of about 
$14, as follows: From Vom Hofe, in New York, 
he bought a greenheart tip with ferrule, 6 foot, 
12 ounce, for ^5. A Jersey spring butt, of betha- 
bara, with reel seat and buttpiece complete cost 
$5 more. Four agate guides and a reversible top 
stood him I3, and he was ready to assemble the rod, 
put on the wrappings as described above, and var- 
nish. In this rod he used the two-guide mounting, 
with guides 10 inches and 22 inches from the top, 
respectively. For ornament green cylinders with 
red borders and yellow center line and double yellow 
outer rings was used as the color scheme, one be- 
tween the two guides pairs and three between the 
lower pair and the ferrule. This tip came with a 
rattan-wound forward grip in front of the ferrule. 
It made a fine, handsome rod when finished, and 
always beat mine for ease and distance of casting. 

During the winter our overheated houses have 
a great way of causing the cement in rod ferrules to 
perish, so that spring finds a good many of them 
loose when you put the rod together. The main 
difliculty about ferrules is to get them back on 
116 




SALT WATER TACKLES 



\ 



^ 



HOW TO MAKE AN INVISIBLE KNOT 
117 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

straight again, so that the rod will not be full of 
dog's tails when put together. All the old cement 
should be carefully scraped and cleaned from wood 
and the inside of the ferrule. To put on a female 
ferrule it had best be first set on the male so that 
your eye has a chance to see that the joint is on 
straight before the cement sets. The rod and fer- 
rule should both be warmed, and then the rod 
covered with fresh ferrule cement and the metal 
shoved over it. Try it for trueness with your eye, 
and either straighten by hand or take apart and do 
over again if it refuses to come in a straight line 
with the next joint. If there is a ferrule pin, drill 
a new hole for it with a fine awl before driving in 
the pin. 

In scraping the varnish from split bamboo rods, 
be careful not to cut into the enamel of the bamboo 
itself. Friend Westervelt advises holding the razor 
blade fiat for this purpose. We use it like a draw 
scraper, watching that we do not take off anything 
but varnish. It is a good plan to have some extra 
snake guides of three sizes in the tackle repair 
drawer, as more than one promising job has been 
halted by a snake guide dropped and lost beyond 
finding — probably making its escape down an ex- 
pectant crack in the floor! The same applies to 
spare agates for brass rods, trumpets for boat rods, 
and at least one large top for the surf fellows; for 
an agate top once cracked will fray any amount of 
good line and is hopeless. For ferrule cement I 
prefer the kind that has to be heated to make it 
liquid. This can be done with even a single match 
out on the stream or beach, and the part is loosened 
ii8 



ROD REPAIRING AND LURE MAKING 

by hand and either replaced or fixed. It is often just 
as important to get a top off easily as to get it on! 

Reel repairs are principally oiling and cleaning. 
A set of screwdrivers that will fit in the slots of all 
the screws in your reels is the first thing to look to. 
No use spoiling a screw head irrevocably with a 
driver blade too big to fit the slot, or too small to 
grip clear across the head. Taking your bass reel 
apart, you will find a remarkable mixture of grease, 
dirt, dust, and fine metal-fouling in its pinion teeth. 
The reel has spun thousands of times during your 
fishing trip, and has industriously ground up all 
the impurities that filtered in through the case, 
until it now will hardly spin six seconds, whereas it 
ought to spin thirty-two on a single whirl. Take off 
the pinions and clean out each tooth carefully with 
a soft rag and a wooden pick point. Drop the whole 
thing in gasoline and wash it about. Clean off, put 
back, and oil with a light machine oil, and the reel 
will be back to pristine spinning power. The drags 
and clicks generally need cleaning and overhauling, 
and perhaps you will seize the occasion to put on 
that cork drum which you have been promising 
yourself — in these days of ^2.50 bass lines! 

Trout reels seldom give much trouble, being so 
"mighty" simple. In eight years the only thing 
that has happened to mine is one rubber cheek 
broken from its securing pin on the reel seat, by 
being dropped on the floor by some thumb-fingered 
dub. Fixed, by securing the pin to the next stanch- 
ion on both sides with three turns of fine wire. This 
held the rubber cheek pieces down in their broken 
holes and will answer — for a trout reel. 

119 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

The salt-water reels are the ones that will give 
you many a fine surprise. Mine was taken out 
"as is," after the war was over and we were free to 
go fishing again. At the very first cast she set her 
automatic drag so tight that the handle could hardly 
be forced over. The unlocking pin for the take- 
apart mechanism was gummed fast with green rust, 
so that she could not be taken apart. There was 
no oilcan in the tackle box, either. In desperation 
I cast again, a mighty swipe which put the auto- 
matic drag permanently out of business; but it 
freed the spool and I went on fishing. Arrived home, 
I took the reel apart in some trepidation, expecting 
at least to find some ground-up disc or wheel that 
would have to be replaced from the factory. The 
least screwdriver, a little fellow with ^-inch blade, 
was needed to back out the four stanchion screws, 
after which the rubber cheek plate was lifted out 
of its recess. And then — what ho, men! — there was 
nothing to it! The automatic drag sets with a 
hook, pushed out by a spring from the plate button 
and engaging a notch in the drag disc. This hook 
was stuck fast with sand and green rust. Push out, 
push in. Button! Neither moved the hook, the 
spring not being strong enough to free it. All it 
needed was cleaning, so that the hook would be 
free to move once more. Also tightening up the 
drag tension. Of course I took the whole drag 
mechanism apart, and got it together again with 
every single piece upside down, but as it obviously 
wouldn't work I fell to studying it and soon got at 
the principle of the thing. There are two spring 
plates and a disc plate, the latter with two notches 
1 20 



ROD REPAIRING AND LURE MAKING 

in it to engage the set hook. A nut on the reel 
shaft puts a pressure on the disc, which, through the 
two spring plates, bears on the inside flange of the 
reel drum. As the hook is attached to the reel 
cheek piece, as soon as it engages the disc there is 
a tension between the drum and the fixed cheek 
piece of the reel. That is all there is to the auto- 
matic drag! You can adjust the tension to any 
amount required by setting up on the nut. 

I never had any trouble with my bass reels 
except one, a punched frame take-apart reel, which 
came out of the trunk warped beyond recovery. 
We took off the ends of this reel and spent an eve- 
ning trying to take the skew out of the frame and get 
the ends round enough to pass the drum flanges 
without touching, but in vain. No home tools will 
do this work to the thousandth's accuracy required 
for a clean-running fit. As it was B. M.'s only bass 
reel and we were a hundred miles from anywhere, 
we had to take turns using my stanchion type reel. 
Yet the other had not received any rougher usage 
than my reels usually get on dozens of trips. The 
factory fixed this reel for me later, without charge 
— as well they might! 

I have seen any number of designs for rod- 
winding lathes, and am of the opinion that, for a 
single worker, two V-notch end rests and a mov- 
able center rest to put near the place where the 
wrapping is going on, is the most workable form of 
rod-winding "lathe." You need both hands to 
manipulate the wrapping turns, the right hand also 
revolving the rod. A means for foot-power turning 
of the rod is the best solution. The standard hard- 

121 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

ware store buffer head, with grooved wheel and two 
threads for a chuck and a poHshing wheel bushing, 
make the best bench lathe for winding rods. Driv- 
ing it will be a grooved wheel and treadle, which can 
be picked up at a junk or second-hand furniture 
dealer's and attached below your work table. On 
it there should be a small grooved wheel about 
the same size as the one in the buffer head, for a rod 
must turn over slowly, not spin, as it would do with 
the big flywheel. Then, in using the head as a 
drill or a turning lathe, you take off the rod-winding 
belt and put on the large one, to go around the rim 
of the flywheel like a sewing machine or jigsaw wheel. 
The art of lure making is one that had little 
attention from the angling fraternity when good 
spinners and artificial baits were made up at prices 
that made no appreciable hole in one's expense 
account for a trip. But now! — a single look at the 
tackle-store counters shows an astonishing advance 
in the prices of these commodities. We simply 
must have enough lures to last out a trip, ten spin- 
ners, half a dozen "plugs," and five large red flies 
to use with pork minnows and chunks. One by 
one these get lost during the days' casting, until 
mighty few are left for the next trip. To buy a new 
set will cost more than the grub and car fare of the 
trip itself, wherefore we turn to the shop for relief. 
For materials we need brass wire of about i8 gauge, 
beads, nickel eyelets from a package of them bought 
at the ten-cent store, feathers, and spoons. These 
latter have caused many to hesitate, but as a matter 
of fact you have an inexhaustible supply of them 
in your old brass pistol and rifle cartridges. A pair 

122 



ROD REPAIRING AND LURE MAKING 

of tin smith's shears is the only tool needed. Cut 
down the cylinder of the cartridge until about % of 
an inch from the base, turn, and cut around the 
cartridge, and you have a nice sheet of brass, big 
enough for a one-inch spoon, from an empty old 
.38 pistol cartridge. The sheet is curved and 
springy, also dirty inside. Anneal it by holding in 
a blue gas flame for a moment, until it glows cherry- 
red. When cool it will be pliable to your fingers, 
and it cuts as easy as paper. For a bright brass 
finish simply polish on the buffer, daub over with 
banana oil and repolish, when you get a rust-proof 
finish. To silver them, dissolve a globule of quick- 
silver in a mixture of two-thirds hydrochloric acid 
and one-third nitric and dip the spoons in the 
mixture, one at a time to prevent undue generation 
of heat. They will come out with a mirror finish. 
To make up spinners the basic elements are a 
piece of brass wire, bent into a long turn, with a 
catch around the shank in which the hook is to be 
hung; a bead, or a few of them, as a base on which 
the spoon is to twirl; the eye part of a hook-and-eye, 
with its eyes turned flat so as to slip over the wire 
and carry the spoon in its U; and, finally, the finish- 
ing eye turned in the end of the brass wire, in which 
the line is to be made fast. That is all there is to 
making a spinner. For double spoons use a longer 
wire, two eyes, and enough beads to space them 
properly. In making up Rangely spinners a single 
hook is hung in the bend of the wire and the hook 
is spun with red or green silk, with gray rooster's 
hackles or any other feathers that you have found 
killing, tied in behind the eye of the hook. For 
123 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

bass and pike spinners, a treble hook with red, 
gray, and white feathers tied at the upper part of 
the shank, a five-inch wire, and one or two brass 
i^-inch spoons will do fine. 

For pork-rind baits I get a set of 6-0 hooks and 
secure over the shank of each a long-eared and 
slotted sinker weighing about ]/2 ounce. This is 
wrapped over with red thread, and a red feather 
tied on with its rib jutting up toward the hook point 
to make it weedless. Beginning with the hook eye, 
I put on a split ring, a swivel, another split ring and 
a second swivel. In the second split ring is hung a 
nickel or brass spoon about i^ inches long. The 
pork minnow, 3 inches long, with tail split up i 
inch, is hung in the bend of the big hook, and the 
revolutions of the spoon make the minnow wiggle 
as it is reeled back to the boat. A mighty killing 
rig, in most lily-pad lakes. To make it effective for 
pickerel, hang a treble hook in the bend of the big 
one and stick one point of it through the side of the 
pork minnow. 

As for artificial plug lures, you will have in the 
shop red and white enamel paint for refurbishing 
your battered ones, spare treble hooks and small 
screweyes to attach them with. To make up a 
plug bait, a white body with red head or throat 
seems the most attractive to bass. If the front 
face is cut flat, on a slant, the bait will dive and 
wobble. If you have the treble hook and screweye 
you can even make a bait in camp by whittling a 
crooked holly stick, anything that is white, tying 
your line a bit back of the head, and making the 
front face a slant. With the hook hung in the 
124 



10=1=5 




^ 8 II — m 



SALT WATER ROD WINDINGS 





^ocv^•^VQr — 



LURES AND SPINNERS 
125 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

throat it will catch bass, and is the better for a tail- 
hook for pickerel. 

It is the heavier-than-water lures, however, that 
one loses. It is seldom that a floating lure is snagged 
beyond recovery. What they principally need is 
repainting, so as to keep them bright and fresh. In 
preparing for a salt-water trip the shop will need 
to make up half a dozen standard tackles, consist- 
ing of a bronze three-way swivel, a leader of bronze 
picture wire two feet long, with an eye for the hook 
snell in one end of it, and 4-ounce pyramid sinkers 
attached to the lower swivel eye with a 6-inch 
length of line with two bowline loops in it. For 
channel bass a >^-inch rawhide loop, with the sinker 
line attached to it and a bone button strung on the 
line below the loop has been found good, as it per- 
mits the fish to pick up the bait and run off with it 
without noticing the drag of the sinker and be- 
coming suspicious. Another modification of the 
same rig is a large bone button with the line pass- 
ing through one hole and the sinker line tied through 
the other. A split shot or even the knot on the end 
of the line will suffice to hold this in casting. It 
works the same way as the loop. 

For bay weakfish and a light trout rod we find 
that an ordinary float bobber with the center stick 
taken out makes a good rig. The line is rove through 
the hole and a match stick or an office paper clip is 
put on where the depth below the float is right. 
When the fish strikes, the line is free to come back 
through the hole without the drag and inertia of 
the float. This is also good for still fishing for bass 
in deep water. 

126 



CHAPTER IX 

Making Gun and Rod Cabinets 

1*VE a whole lot of respect for the man who says, 
"Go to, now, let's make a" — well, anything he 

can't afford to buy, be it a sail or motor boat, a 
portable house or any other article where two-thirds 
of the price is in labor and profits. These winter 
days are great times for puttering and fussing about 
with a saw and a hammer; a busy season for the 
sportsman's workshop. A good many years ago 
when gun cabinets were selling for about $^^ — and 
not really artistic ones at that — I swore a round 
oath that my high-priced arsenal of guns should no 
longer be sequestered all winter in swaddled and 
oil-soaked rags and poked away out of sight in 
travel-worn leather gun cases. To be deprived of 
all sight of the beloved rifles and shotguns all winter 
was asking too, too much, yet if you hung them up 
on horns the beauties were sure to accumulate 
streaks of rust all along the tops of the barrels and 
the dust soon took the handsome gloss off lock, 
stock, and barrel. 

Wherefore: "Go to, now, let's make a gun cab- 
inet!" I wanted something handsome enough to 
take its place beside the best library or living-room 
furniture made; something that would show off 
my pets to best advantage, and something with 

127 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

plenty of drawers in it for tackle, camp duffle, shells, 
loading tools; everything that would spell outdoors 
at me through the long winter evenings. There were 
three shotguns and three rifles to be taken care of; 
shell belts; boots; a little five-pound tent; a camp 
axe, and five gun cases. It seemed to me that pol- 
ished black walnut with brass fittings and a hunter's 
green felt lining to the gun compartment would 
make a rather handsome piece of furniture, espe- 
cially if it had a pair of plateglass doors in front so 
as to show off the polished artillery inside. And I 
couldn't see anything to admire in the folding 
table-board put in front of some cabinets. Not only 
would it cover the gunstocks and locks when down, 
but it would not give room enough for a really 
enjoyable shell-loading bee if used for that pur- 
pose as advertised. Then I wanted plenty of small 
drawers in it, at least a dozen, so it would not be 
hard to find anything when wanted. 

There was a lot of fun planning these drawers. 
Taking the standard, 4 inches by 4 inches by 10 
inches deep, you needed two 6 inches by 4 inches 
by 10 inches at the bottom on each side for shell 
crimpers and powder cans. Then you needed a 
drawer for wads, another for shot, another for shells, 
another for primers and loading tools, one for rifle 
loading set and rifle shells, a drawer for compass, 
small camp duffle, surgical kit, etc.; another for 
ditty bag and hunting knife; another sacred to 
reels, one for lines and flies, and one exclusively for 
hooks, sinkers, lures, and such small deer. Above 
the drawers ought to be a lo-inch space on each 
side for favorite outdoor textbooks, while under 
128 



MAKING GUN AND ROD CABINETS 

the drawers the partition could come in a little to 
make a space 5>^ inches wide by 14 inches high on 
each side. One of these would hold the tent in its 
green denim covering and the other the shell belts 
and outing boots. I next planned a shallow drawer 
3 inches deep and the full width of the gun cabinet 
to go under the gun rack, and in which to keep the 
gun cases handy for field use. Having planned thus 
far, the thing began to take definite shape in feet 
and inches, so I set about building a cabinet 61 
inches high, i2>^ inches deep, and 28>^ inches 
wide, which would have a row of six 4-inch drawers 
down each side and would hold six guns and two 
rods in the central rack. Black walnut is rather 
rich for a poor sportsman's pocketbook, but white 
wood (tulip tree) grains beautifully, is easily worked, 
and, when stained with any good clear black walnut 
stain, will polish to look exactly like the real black 
walnut. So I got out two ^-inch dressed planks of 
white wood 5 feet i inch long by iiy^ inches wide, 
planed the edges and carved a simple English 
Gothic arch out of the bottom to make a finish for 
the feet on each side. Next the top and bottom 
boards were sawed off the plank. The former is a 
piece of 28-inch by i2><-inch by ^-inch, nailed 
over the ends of the side planks with lo-d brads 
and the bottom is i^ inches shorter, going in be- 
tween the sides on concealed nail-strips. Another 
board, exactly like the bottom, was put 3 inches 
above it to form the bottom of the gun rack, but 
this board was only 10 inches wide, so as to come 
inside the cabinet doors. 

I next bought some >2-inch planks of white 
^ 129 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

wood lo inches wide and set up out of these the 
lower 51^-inch by 14-inch compartments on each 
side, following with the long drawer side partitions, 
running from the top of the cabinet down into the 
top board of the side compartments. Then there 
were days of fussing with the drawer partitions and 
making the drawers; particularly getting them so 
they would not stick, but finally every last one of 
the dozen slid back onto its stop like an angel. The 
bottom drawer was 3 inches by 26 inches by 10 
inches, and upon its completion I was ready for 
the decorative work. 

To begin with, the flat sides were anything but 
handsome, so to relieve their monotony I skir- 
mished around in the moulding stock of a nearby 
carpenter shop and got out a lot of flat white wood 
moulding with cove and bead edge, the moulding 
being i^ inches wide and ^4 inch thick. This I 
ran around the sides of the cabinet, bringing it 
just under the cornice, and crossing below on the 
level with the bottom of the cabinet, so that the 
arch of the feet came below this trim. All the cor- 
ners of it were, of course, mitered and it was fastened 
on the sides with concealed brads, flush with front 
and back faces. For a top cornice I used 2-inch 
O. G. moulding mitered around front and sides, 
and this in its turn was supported by a i^-inch 
corner trim of fancy pressed and beaded corner 
moulding. After sandpapering all over and sink- 
ing and puttying all brads, I gave the entire cabi- 
net a coat of black walnut stain, through which 
the grain of the white wood showed beautifully. 
Then three coats of No. i carriage varnish, rubbing 
130 



MAKING GUN AND ROD CABINETS 

down each coat with No. O sandpaper, horsehair, 
and pumice stone and oil, and finally polish only. 
In this way I soon got a smooth, glossy oil finish all 
over it, and then put in the hunter's green felt 
lining of the gun compartment. To make the bot- 
tom racks for the gunstocks I concealed ^-inch by 
^-inch by 8^-inch sleepers under the felt, and for 
the barrel racks I cut out two i^-^-inch semi-circles, 
spaced 2>^-inch centers for each gun. This was 
screwed to the back of the cabinet 3 feet 3 inches 
above the floor, and each semi-circle was lined with 
a strip of felt so as not to mar the precious gun 
barrels. The front doors of the cabinet were next 
made of 2-inch by ^-inch stock white pine frames 
13 inches wide by 55 inches long. They were 
rabbeted to receive the panes of ^5^-inch glass, 10^ 
inches by 52^ inches, ^nd then stained and polished. 
The glass was held in the rabbets by strips of 
^-inch by xVinch rock elm, also stained and 
polished, and secured by tiny brads so that the 
glasses can be taken out and packed in their own 
box whenever the gun cabinet has to go into a 
moving van. 

It was now time to go after display, in the 
brass work of the hinges, latch and knobs of the 
drawers. The photographs will give some idea of 
how this looked. The drawer knobs are J/^-inch 
diameter, of heavy brass, with knurled edges, and 
I had a dozen 2-inch circular flat pedestals turned 
out by a wood-lathe artist, which gave "some class" 
to the securing of the knobs to the drawers. I used 
altogether ten knobs for the 4-inch drawers, two 
ring handles for 6-inch drawers, two square plate 

131 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

handles for bottom drawer, four fancy hinges for 
cabinet doors; one fancy lock; two heavy brass 
hooks for revolvers and shell-belts, and top and 
bottom brass concealed bolts in cabinet doors. 
About ^4 worth of fancy brass work. The rest of 
the cabinet did not cost over $5, all told, except the 
glass for the front doors, which came to ^i .04. Lumber 
and sundries bill: 1 8 B. F. D2S, ^-inch white wood; 
30 B. F., >^-inch white wood; 25 feet i^ by ^s-inch 
moulding; 6 feet 2 inches by "fi-'mch. O. G. mould- 
ing; 6 feet i^ inch pressed moulding; 22 feet 2 inch 
by ^-inch dressed joist; 2 yards hunters' green felt; 
can of walnut stain; 2 cans carriage varnish. 

If a man is an all-around four-sided sportsman, 
his gun cabinet is sure to slowly but steadily fill 
up with beauty double shotguns and world-beater 
rifles, until there is a considerable overflow meeting 
in some corner of the den of fishing rods and other 
outdoor pieces of bric-a-brac which have been 
crowded out of the sacred precincts of the gun 
cabinet. This is one of those did-it-ever-happen-to- 
you's that did happen to me, and forced, in time, 
the inevitable query. Why not a rod cabinet? 
Here were seven hom.eless rods with their attendant 
reels, a whole menagerie of gaudy flies, wooden 
worms and wonder minnows, tackle and angling 
paraphernalia galore — and no fixed locus for any 
of them. And so a rod cabinet began to take shape 
in my thoughts. T had never seen one, nor do I 
believe there is such a thing on the market, but it 
seemed to me that such a cabinet should be ar- 
ranged to hang all tips and second joints from some 
sort of curtain pole and ring device which would 
132 



MAKING GUN AND ROD CABINETS 

make them easy to get at; that all butts with their 
reels attached should be arranged around the in- 
terior, with spring clips to hold them in place, like 
those foreign cane racks, and that the cabinet should 
be tall enough to take one-piece bait casting rods 
and 6-foot surf rod tips without difficulty. Then 
there should be drawers for miscellaneous tackle, 
tin-lined compartments for trout, bass, and salmon 
flies, and a row of brass hooks for squids, spoons, 
tasseled minnows, and benighted plugs. The creel, 
nets, waders, and gaff belonged more properly with 
pack bags and camp gear outside of the rod cabinet, 
which I proposed should rival in glory and beauty 
the gun cabinet itself. 

As for the treatment of the case, plain mission 
is the easiest to do, and yet be able to get a hand- 
some finished effect with ordinary home tools and 
talent; so I chose this style with red oak for the 
panel boards and white for the four square posts 
which were to go at the corners. The construction 
of the cabinet is really a very simple matter. It 
calls for an oak back 12 inches wide by 5 feet 2 
inches high, two oak sides 8 inches by 5 feet 2 inches 
and a top and bottom 12^ inches by 8 inches. Nail 
these up with brads into a long, narrow box. Order 
from the mill 24 feet of i}i inches by i>^ inches 
square white oak, dressed four sides, and make four 
posts 5 feet 6 inches long. Round over the tops 
neatly and nail them along the front and back of 
your box, forming thereby four square posts or 
columns at the corners. The nails should be brads, 
driven concealed from the inside of the box. Allow 
the two front posts to project ^ inch beyond the 
^32> 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

front edge of the cabinet, making a recess for the 
glass door. Now order some ^-inch white wood 
and make two drawers, one 6 inches deep by 6 
inches high and 12 inches wide, and the other 6 
inches deep by 3 inches high by 12 inches wide. 
You will note that they will come, when closed, 2 
inches from the back of the cabinet, where you 
should nail a stop to prevent them going in any 
further. This 2-inch space in behind the drawers 
leaves room for your long one-piece rods and surf 
rod tips, which need the full height of the cabinet 
to go in at all. The upper 3-inch drawer will only 
need ><-inch by >^-inch by 8-inch strip runners 
under it, but the lower drawer wants a >^-inch by 
8-inch by lo-inch bottom board, nailed in just 
above it for rod butts to rest upon. It must have 
round holes cut in the back to pass the butts of 
one-piece rods and long surf tips. Line the interior 
of the cabinet with dark red felt or leave it natural 
finish and stain with Colonial art finish, tobacco 
brown, or weathered oak, to suit your fancy. The 
stain is rubbed on with a rag and brings out the 
grain beautifully. All it then needs is rubbing down 
with furniture polish to acquire a truly "profesh" 
appearance. The door you had best order from some 
door and sash mill, as it is impossible for an am- 
ateur without machinery to get neat corners and 
muntin joints. The frame should be of white wood, 
i>^ inches by J4> inch stock. Lights, four 8 inches 
by 15 inches, plain panes, or, if you prefer diamond 
panes, the mill can get you up something of stock 
sizes, but it will cost a good deal more. If your 
cabinet is 5 feet 2 inches high inside, the door will 
134 



MAKING GUN AND ROD CABINETS 

need to be 5 feet 3^ inches by 10^ inches, allowing 
for ^-inch stock. Stain at the same time you do 
the cabinet. As to hardware, the less of it that is 
seen in mission design the better. Have your 
hinges small, f^-inch by i}i inches, brass, butt 
pattern, countersunk flush into the wood, and the 
backs coming just flush with the face of the cabinet. 
The lock should be a small brass mortise lock with 
plain, inconspicuous keyhole, without any es- 
cutcheon. 

Your cabinet is now ready for the rod fittings. 
For tips and second joints get some ^-inch black 
walnut curtain poling, and cut two 8-inch pegs 
from it, which drive into the back board of the 
cabinet so that they will stick out horizontally into 
the interior of the cabinet. Place them 3 inches 
apart and 33^ inches from the sides of the cabinet, 
and of the height to swing clear your longest tip. 
Get brass curtain rings to fit the poles with a small 
brass hook dangling from each. The left-hand peg 
will hang a dozen tips and the right-hand the sec- 
ond joints. The latter will need small brass screw- 
eyes screwed into the stopper plugs to hang them 
up by, as it is essential that they hang down straight. 

There remain the various butts. On each side 
you will have room for at least four. Turned and 
polished black walnut curtain pole sockets are the 
thing for a recess to hold the bottom ends of your 
butts, while a corresponding row of brass cane 
spring-clips, which you can get from any big hard- 
ware store, are what you want to hold the upper 
ends of the butts. Each one carries its reel attached, 
and as no two reels are at the same height, it is not 



THE SPORTSMAN'S WORKSHOP 

difficult to get them all placed without interfering; 
and if you own a collection of marvelous minnows 
and thousand-hook centipedes you can display a row 
of twenty of them on brass hooks, screwed in just 
below the upper drawer all around the interior of 
the cabinet. 

The raison d'etre of the rod cabinet is the same 
as the gun cabinet — protection from deterioration 
and the placing of your pet rods where you can see 
them and dream over them in idle moments. Your 
delicate tips are not warped as they would be from 
a winter in the rod bag, nor are your beautiful rods 
poked away in some closet where rust doth corrupt 
and moths break through and steal, only to be taken 
out and looked at on rare occasions. Instead they 
are a continuous delight to the eye during the 
winter evenings in the den, and if any rod needs 
repairing you are reminded of it every time you 
glance at your cabinet. The cost of it, as I have 
described it, will not exceed $4 for lumber, hard- 
ware, felt, and stain. 



136 



<'!Sail'..;' 



